Larissa Larsen

Larissa Larsen is a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She teaches graduate courses including URP 507—Fundamentals of Planning Practice (a required course in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program), URP 610/URP 402 Cities and Climate Change, and ARCH 423/URP 423/ENVIRON 370 Introduction to Urban and Environmental Planning. Her teaching emphasizes applied learning through community-based projects with Southeast Michigan municipalities.

Dr. Larsen's research focuses on urban environmental challenges exacerbated by climate change, particularly extreme heat and stormwater flooding. Her work is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating physical, natural, and health concepts while collaborating with faculty in public health, civil engineering, and urban climatology. She has established an international research collaboration with Addis Ababa University studying rapid urbanization's impact on water infrastructure in East African cities.

Analysis of her publications reveals a research trajectory from foundational work on stormwater management toward increasingly urgent studies on extreme heat impacts and climate adaptation planning. Her 2023 collaborative study on Phoenix heat impacts, published in Environmental Science and Technology, demonstrated that a combined heat wave and blackout could send half the city's population to emergency departments.

• Taubman College 2023 Award for Faculty Excellence

Dr. Larsen has received recognition for her advocacy protecting vulnerable residents from extreme heat, with recent coverage in April 2024. Before joining Michigan, she worked as a landscape architect in Chicago and taught at Arizona State University. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and maintains her registration as a landscape architect, with particular interest in native plants and sustainable urban design.