"UMass Amherst Planning Faculty and PhD Student Research," Zube Panel Discussion with Peter Dunn, Theodore Eisenman, and Paromita Shome
Join UMass LARP for a Zube Lecture Series panel discussion featuring planning research by UMass Amherst professors Peter Dunn and Theodore Eisenman and PhD student Paromita Shome.
A recording of this lecture will be posted to UMass LARP's YouTube channel after the event.
About the Panelists
Theodore Eisenman, PhD, is an associate professor of landscape architecture and regional planning and the Director of the Master of Regional Planning Program at UMass Amherst. He also serves as the Honors Program Director for the Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning (LARP).
Professor Eisenman's principal scholarly interest concerns the historical, scientific, cultural, and design bases of urban greening, which he defines as a social practice of organized or semi-organized efforts to introduce, conserve, or maintain outdoor vegetation in urban areas. This research encompasses urban tree planting initiatives (TPIs), urban ecosystem services and disservices, human health and wellbeing links with urban flora, design and planning norms, equity, and governance. It also includes emerging areas of interest: 1.) urban greening in a globalizing world, encompassing international comparative analysis of landscape design and governance norms; and 2.) travelscapes, the spaces people move through on a daily basis that are a prominent way people experience landscapes.
Professor Eisenman believes that design is a powerful tool for enhancing human and ecological potentials, and this informs his approach to landscape architecture and urban planning education and scholarship. Prior to starting at UMass, he was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Humanities Institute at The New York Botanical Garden, and his work is animated by the environmental humanities and themes related to the Anthropocene.
Professor Eisenman has been a regular contributor to Landscape Architecture Magazine on ecological design topics, and his career spans research and practice with a range of federal, municipal, and nonprofit organizations. Raised in Sweden and the U.S. and having traveled extensively including work as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal, he is broadly interested in international and cross-cultural perspectives on landscape planning and design.
Peter Dunn, PhD, is a lecturer in regional planning at UMass Amherst, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students interested in creating better communities. Professor Dunn is the program director and academic advisor for the undergraduate Sustainable Community Development program. He also coordinates the 4+1 MRP and 4+2 MLA accelerated master's programs. In the 2026-2027 academic year, Professor Dunn was selected for the Lilly Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.
Professor Dunn’s intellectual focus is at the intersection of planning and digital technologies. Specifically, he asks how such technologies are not straightforward solutions to identified problems, but are messy sites where diverse actors work through conflicting visions of desirable public life. Work from his doctoral dissertation, which investigates the idealized promise and actual use of smartphone apps for urban mobility, has been published in Urban Planning and the Journal of Urban Technology.
Professor Dunn's current research projects address the public health benefits of urban tree plantings and the politics of new streetcar projects. Dunn previously served as a researcher on an NSF-funded project investigating community resilience to natural hazards. Other interests include cartography, the politics of public space, and feminist political theory. Prior to entering academia, Professor Dunn worked for Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the International City/County Management Association.
Paromita Shome is a PhD student in the Regional Planning program at UMass Amherst. Her research interest aligns with climate change, adaptation planning, and social equity. Before joining the PhD program, she completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Urban and Regional Planning at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).