Jesus J. Lara is an Associate Professor in the Knowlton School’s City and Regional Planning Section at Ohio State University. From 2007 to 2013 he was an Assistant Professor in the landscape architecture section in the Knowlton School, and in 2007 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico in the Urban and Regional Planning program. His research and pedagogy are centered on sustainable urban design, Latino Urbanism, community development, and on the sociocultural factors which influence planning and design. He is both co-editor and principal contributor in Remaking Metropolis: Global Challenges of the Urban Landscape (Routledge, 2013). He is also the guest editor and contributor of a special issue of Journal of Urbanism entitled, “International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability in 21st Century American Cities.” Prof. Lara is also the lead curator and contributor with respect to the extensive literature review on Latino Urbanism found in the Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Urbanism. He is further the sole author of Latino Placemaking and Planning: Cultural Resiliency and Strategies for Re-urbanization (University of Arizona Press, 2018), a work which examines the application of the principles of Latino Urbanism in the revitalization of American cities.

Throughout his career Prof. Lara's research has focused broadly on topics related to emerging approaches to planning, design and development that responds to lifestyles, cultural preferences, and economic needs that are reflected in the built environment. This approach is evident in his current teaching, research and publications. Since joining the faculty in the City & Regional Planning program, he has built upon this foundation while narrowing his research into three primary subfields of planning enquiry. 1) Planning and placemaking for emergent immigrant communities, 2) Community development through service-learning education, and 3) Pedagogic approaches to sustainable urban design.

Prof. Lara received a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from California State Polytechnic University in 1994, a Master’s in both Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture from the University of Southern California in 2001, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Arizona State University in 2006. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University, the Netherlands, between 2003 and 2004, where he conducted research on sustainable urban design practices. Between 2014 and 2015 Prof. Lara was a visiting professor at the Institute for European Urban Studies (IfEU) at Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, Germany.