Shawhin Roudbari

About

Shawhin Roudbari is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Design program at the University of Colorado Boulder, having joined the faculty in 2014 and becoming an assistant professor in 2016. His teaching and research focus on how designers organize to address social problems, with particular interest in ethics, activism, social change, and dissent through design. Roudbari explores non-conventional methods of engaging with social issues, involving students as active producers of knowledge through projects such as the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse renovation and the dissent by design studio, which encourages speculative design on contentious social topics. His research background includes a significant interest in the intersection of architecture, race, and social justice. Roudbari has collaborated with colleagues on exploring themes of racism in architecture, and he was invited to co-guest edit issue 33 of MAS Context, which focused on vigilantism and its implications in social and spatial contexts. His work aims to bring awareness to uncomfortable but critical topics like racism, vigilantism, and social justice within architectural discourse, with the goal of making these conversations accessible and relevant to architecture students and society at large.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Engineering
• Public relations
• Computer Security
• Law
• Engineering ethics
• Social Science
• Environmental ethics
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Resisting and assisting engagement with public welfare in engineering education

  Journal of Engineering Education · 2020 · 75 citations

  Abstract Background Increasing engineering students' engagement with public welfare is central to promoting ethical responsibility among engineers and enhancing engineers' capacity to serve the public good. However, little research has investigated how student experience attempts to increase engagement with public welfare concerns. Purpose/Hypothesis This study identifies and analyzes the challenges facing efforts to increase engineering students' engagement with the social and ethical implicati…

  PublisherDOI

• Disaster resilience and sustainability of incarceration infrastructures: A review of the literature

  International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction · 2022 · 27 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Bringing in "The Social" : Resisting and Assisting Social Engagement in Engineering Education

  2018 World Engineering Education Forum - Global Engineering Deans Council (WEEF-GEDC) · 2018-11-01 · 22 citations

  article

  This paper explores how students experience the integration of social knowledge into engineering education. Engineering for peace requires going beyond purely technical engineering towards an integrated social and technical understanding of how engineering can promote community development and societal good. This study focuses on student experiences at two major engineering for community development programs that are actively integrating social and technical knowledge in engineering education, w…

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating Social Justice and Political Engagement into Engineering

  International Journal of Engineering Social Justice and Peace · 2020 · 19 citations

  Many engineering activists have emphasized the need to reframe engineering as a sociotechnical field in order to expand engineers' contributions to social justice and peace. Yet, reframing engineering as sociotechnical does not always lead to critical engagement with social justice. We provide several examples of how “social” aspects have been brought into engineering in a depoliticized manner that limits engagement with political and social justice goals. We link these examples to Cech’s three…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Hazards and Incarceration Facilities: Evaluating Facility-Level Exposure to Floods, Wildfires, Extreme Heat, and Landslides in Colorado

  Natural Hazards Review · 2023-09-26 · 11 citations

  article

  Incarcerated people are some of the most vulnerable and at risk in our society. One understudied source of this high risk is the exposure of incarceration facilities to environmental hazards. This study addresses this gap by developing and applying spatial analyses to evaluate the exposure of incarceration infrastructure to wildfire, flood, extreme heat, and landslide hazards. First, we classified the exposure to these four hazards for all known incarceration facilities in the state of Colorado.…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Standard: Institutional Cultures of Ethical Practice in University-Based Engineering-for-Development Programs

  NSF · $318k · 2016–2021

• Engineering Dissent: Moving Political Engagement for Social Justice from the Vanguard into the Mainstream of the Engineering Profession

  NSF · $369k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Ann Marie Dang

  University of Colorado Boulder

  10 shared

• Skye Niles

  10 shared

• Joris Gjata

  9 shared

• Matthew S. Rowe

  San Diego State University

  9 shared

• Chloe Nicklas

  University of Colorado System

  9 shared

• Santina Contreras

  University of Southern California

  7 shared

• Shideh Dashti

  University of Colorado Boulder

  5 shared

• Ana Colón Quiñones

  University of Colorado Boulder

  4 shared

Education

• B.S.

  University of Colorado Boulder

• M.S.

  University of Colorado Boulder

• Ph.D.

  University of Colorado Boulder

Similar researchers at University of Colorado Boulder

• Kevin J. Krizekh-45
• Jota Samperh-7
• Susannah Drakeh-1