The Healthy Environments Action Lab (HEAL) in the Hamer Center for Community Design at Penn State is dedicated to addressing the intersections of the built environment, community resilience, and human health. Faculty and students explore community-engaged design projects that address questions related to environmental health from micro to macro scales. Projects have included measuring and monitoring indoor air quality in diverse spaces and places; addressing outdoor thermal comfort through community-identified urban heat island mitigation strategies; and exploring how physical and spatial features interact with social vulnerabilities to illuminate potential health risk.
The HEAL is led by Erica Husser.