About

Leidy Klotz is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, where he studies and writes about design and problem-solving. His work emphasizes the importance of subtraction as a problem-solving strategy, challenging the human tendency to add before taking away, which can be detrimental. Klotz has published extensively, including over 80 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and has authored books that explore behavioral science, design, environment, business, well-being, and education. His notable book, SUBTRACT: The Untapped Science of Less, has been translated into eight languages and is recognized as an essential read across multiple disciplines. His upcoming book, IN A GOOD PLACE, will examine how the spaces where we live, work, and play can help us thrive.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Social Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Sociology
• Mathematics
• Cognitive psychology
• Economics
• Business
• Engineering ethics
• Mathematics education
• Engineering
• Management
• Arithmetic
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Work in Progress: A Framework for an Improv Intervention to Increase Psychological Safety and Sense of Belonging on Student Engineering Design Teams

  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2024-02-20 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Jenn spent 9 years working in a variety of

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Exploring an Intervention to Increase Psychological Safety on Student Engineering Design Teams

  2024-08-04

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Recent work

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Recycling bias and reduction neglect

  Nature Sustainability · 2023-07-24 · 32 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Informing Just Design with Place-Based Racial History

  ASCE OPEN Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering · 2023-11-06

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Enhanced designs of the built environment are particularly urgent for frontline communities, who experience the first and worst of climate change. A climate adaptation approach that prioritizes need-based distributive justice, the allocation of resources to meet the basic conditions necessary for continued community existence, may empower frontline communities in the resource allocation process. Need-based distributive justice is often viewed as a supplement to other universal principles of distributive justice, such as merit—the allocation of resources according to individual contributions. The overlooked need principle, however, is especially important because it can address the deficit of resources that frontline communities experience. Frontline communities disproportionately comprise members of racial minority groups, whose history of marginalization intertwines with past and present decisions that contribute to the position of communities on the frontlines of climate change. Yet, racial history is not commonplace in discussions about climate adaptation. Therefore, this research considers ways to introduce place-based racial history in climate adaptation planning. In an online experiment (n = 1,731), all participants were shown a video describing how updated infrastructure (e.g., cooling pavements) could address present and future heat vulnerability in a frontline community. The intervention, a 50-s addition to the video, described a highway in the community, which bisected and is associated with the decline of a historically Black neighborhood. Participants then shared their support for or opposition to a need-based distributive justice strategy for the project. The brief intervention tested did not significantly (P = 0.07) increase support for a need-based distributive justice strategy. However, additional analysis revealed that this relationship was mediated by the degree to which participants perceived the racial history presented to be relevant to the stated problem. These results suggest that more in-depth racial history interventions should be tested for this purpose.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Decades of public messages about recycling in the US have crowded out more sustainable ways to manage waste

  2023-07-24 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Human Values and Sustainable Construction Management: A Literature Review

  Construction Research Congress 2022 · 2022-03-07 · 1 citations

  reviewSenior author

  This review examines how human values have been conceptualized in sustainable construction and the primary considerations for the study, management, and application of values to the built environment’s transition to sustainability. “Values” are understood as “assets” and/or “goals” in the sustainable construction literature. These meanings are mediated by the triple bottom line model of economic, environmental, and social sustainability and by the ideals of benefit maximization, balance, and optimization. The review also revealed that sustainability has been defined as an adaptive system of values, and three approaches to it were synthesized: essentialism (alignment of stakeholders’ values with an absolute ethical framework), pragmatism (negotiation and use of already held values), and critical approach (empowerment of non-governing stakeholders). Findings support the idea that human values and the built environment are subject to an ongoing mutual reconfiguration. Findings also suggest how already-held values can be used to foster sustainability initiatives in the construction industry.

  PublisherDOI

• Framing to reduce present bias in infrastructure design intentions

  iScience · 2022-02-19 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Infrastructure professionals (N = 261) were randomly assigned to either a future or present-framed project description and asked to recommend design attributes for an infrastructure project. The future-framed condition led professionals to propose a significantly longer infrastructure design life, useful life to the community, and acceptable return on financial investment. The findings suggest a straightforward and inexpensive way to lessen present bias in various design contexts.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Less Is More? In Patents, Design Transformations that Add Occur More Often Than Those that Subtract

  2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Community involvement in coastal infrastructure adaptation should balance necessary complexity and perceived effort

  iScience · 2022-08-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Successful adaptation of coastal infrastructure requires public participation, and it is important to elicit accurate feedback from surveys and in-person interactions. But there remains a need for evidence about the efficacy of potential risk communication design metrics. This online experiment (n = 261) sought to understand the necessity of a multifaceted risk perception questionnaire to capture public input. Using six coastal infrastructure examples, risk perceptions were collected using a questionnaire highlighting multiple types of risk (intervention) or not (control). Public evaluations of risk did not differ in most cases. Moreover, the intervention imposed more cognitive strain on participants, which could unintentionally discourage public participation in the climate adaptation process. In this case, the single question provides the same input, with less effort. This finding is a reminder that effective risk communication for managing adaptation processes requires considering both the quality of public input and the effort required to provide it.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pictures Matter: How Images of Projected Sea-Level Rise Shape Long-Term Sustainable Design Decisions for Infrastructure Systems

  Sustainability · 2022-03-04 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Community input matters in long-term decisions related to climate change, including the development of public infrastructure. In order to assess the effect of different ways of informing the public about infrastructure projects, a sample of people in the United States (n = 630) was provided with a case study concerning the redevelopment of the San Diego Airport. Participants received the same written information about the projected future condition of the airport. In addition, participants received images either portraying current conditions or portraying conditions in 2100 based on NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) sea-level rise data. Participants were asked to choose 7 out of 21 design options to implement in the redevelopment project. The framework used for the design options stemmed from the Envision rating system. We analyzed the participants’ selection of the credits using generalized linear mixed models. Those that received the images portraying the future were significantly more likely to select design options that would reduce the risk of climate change and flooding. Images portraying sea-level rise had different effects depending on participant demographics. Such images increased the selection of design elements related to the climate and risk for participants identifying as female or as Democrat. For participants identifying as male or as Republican, the same images increased their selection of design elements to enhance community public space. The results demonstrate the positive effects of portraying the future in terms of encouraging focus on long-term sustainable design decisions for infrastructure systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CAREER: Modeling Irrationalities of Designers to Support their Decisions for Net-Zero Energy Buildings

  NSF · $412k · 2011–2016

• INSPIRE - Intentional defaults for more sustainable infrastructure: Studying interventions to alleviate biases in upstream, multi-stakeholder decisions

  NSF · $1.0M · 2015–2017

• Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for REstorative infrastructure through Convergent Engineering and Psychology (RE‐CEP)

  NSF · $99k · 2018–2020

• GSE/RES:Sustainability topics as a route to female recruitment in engineering

  NSF · $498k · 2010–2014

• INSPIRE - Intentional defaults for more sustainable infrastructure: Studying interventions to alleviate biases in upstream, multi-stakeholder decisions

  NSF · $949k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Tripp Shealy

  34 shared

• Elke U. Weber

  Princeton University

  25 shared

• Katelyn Stenger

  21 shared

• Richa Vuppuluri

  Engineering Systems (United States)

  20 shared

• Michael Horman

  Pennsylvania State University

  19 shared

• Patrick Hancock

  University of Virginia

  17 shared

• J. Peter Campbell

  American Society For Engineering Education

  17 shared

• Eric Johnson

  16 shared

Labs

• Leidy Klotz LabPI

Awards & honors

• Best Paper Award, Society of Judgement and Decision Making 2…
• Research Award, University of Virginia 2021
• CAREER Award, National Science Foundation 2011
• INSPIRE - Intentional defaults for more sustainable infrastr…