I am a geographer. A scholar, artist, and educator. Currently, I work in community design and planning. As a Research and Design Fellow at the Minnesota Design Center, I coordinate and lead projects within the Empowering Small Minnesota Communities program, and contribute to MDC’s community-centered design efforts.
I am also co-founder of Living Land Workshop (with Margot Lystra). We bring people together to talk about land, expanding peoples' attention to the places they live and the living world that surrounds them. We do this through land gatherings: community conversations, creative workshops, visual collaborations, and project guidance.
My research and writing focuses on nature-society relations – in particular, the natures of land, property and the commons. My first book, Living with Yards: Nature and the Habits of Home is out with McGill Queens University Press (2022). My work on urban environmental issues has been published in edited volumes and a range of scholarly journals.
I have extensive experience with qualitative methods such as ethnography, visual representations including photography, and participatory approaches. I have also taught many university classes in environmental studies, urban studies, and environmental humanities. My creative practice includes printmaking, writing, and photography.
I earned my PhD in Geography from the University of Minnesota, and a Master of Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley. My undergraduate BA in Biology and Anthropology is from Swarthmore College. I have held academic appointments at the University of Glasgow and the Rhode Island School of Design, and teach intermittently at the University of Minnesota.
I live in St Paul, MN.
Contact: ursula.a.lang@gmail.com OR lang0294@umn.edu