Dr. Wenwen Cheng, assistant professor of Landscape Architecture, was recently awarded funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to support her project titled “A Spatial Decision Support System for Identifying Heat Vulnerability Based on a Comprehensive Energy Budget Model and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Oklahoma City, OK,” with an amount of $149,163. Dr. Cheng directs the Microclimatic Landscape Architecture Research Lab at the University of Oklahoma.
This project was funded in response to NASA’s Research Announcement entitled “Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science,” within the Equity and Environmental Justice program element (NSPIRES A.49).
The objective of this proposal is to develop an innovative index by integrating multi-dimensions of heat vulnerable indicators to reveal heat vulnerable population and locations, as well as a spatial decision support system to promote heat-related policymaking processes among different stakeholders.
Read on to learn about Dr. Cheng’s collaborators on this project and to read a detailed overview.
From left: Dr. Wenwen Cheng (PI), and co-PIs, Dr. Anni Yang, Dr. Changjie Cai, Dr. Zhe Zhang, and Dr. Dongying Li
Principal Investigator
Dr. Wenwen Cheng, Assistant Professor
Division of Landscape Architecture
The University of Oklahoma
Co-PIs on the project:
Dr. Anni Yang, Assistant Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability
The University of Oklahoma
Dr. Changjie Cai, Assistant Professor
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health
The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, The University of Oklahoma
Dr. Zhe Zhang, Assistant Professor
Department of Geography
Texas A&M University
Dr. Dongying Li, Assistant Professor
Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning
Texas A&M University
Additional project collaborators include:
T.O. Bowman, Program Planner
Planning Department
City of Oklahoma City
Sean W. Voskuhl, Director
AARP Oklahoma
Georgie Rasco, Executive Director
Neighborhood Alliance of Central Oklahoma
Shane Hampton, Executive Director
Institute for Quality Communities
University of Oklahoma
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture professor and Institute for Quality Communities Director Dr. Amber N. Wiley’s book, Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital, has received two major honors from the Urban History Association.
Research initiated by Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture alumna Naila Hasan during her master’s studies at the University of Oklahoma has continued through faculty collaboration and resulted in a peer-reviewed publication in HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce Esther Thorp, Tyler Boydstun and Chukwuma Nwokoye as the winners of the 2026 Construction Innovation Translation Hub (CIThub) Student Ideas Competition.
