Valle Scholar Heading to Aalborg University

In about a month, I will be getting on a plane and heading off to live in Aalborg, Denmark or six months. This will be my third time studying in this delightful country, but this will be my first time spending time in the northern peninsula. Currently, I am a masters student at the University of Washington, earning concurrent degrees in Urban Planning and Public Administration, with a specialization in Urban Design. I additionally am a Graduate Transportation Planning Intern for the City of Bellevue. To earn my degrees, I will be completing a professional project for Bellevue. My past experiences in Denmark have inspired my professional interests in transportation facilities design--specifically for non-motorized road users--led me to pursue this impending opportunity to return to Scandinavia to inspire my professional project's research in it's nascence.

Thanks to generous support from Valle Scholarship and Scandinavian Exchange Program, I have funding allowing me to move to Denmark and engage in research in Denmark. I will be studying and working as a research intern for the Centre for Mobilities and Urban Studies at Aalborg University, working specifically with the newly formed Mobilities Design Group.

(May 4, 2008 | Copenhagen, Denmark)

This is a trip I am immensely excited for and will be documenting as much as I can stand on this blog. I head out in September and until then will post about the preparations for my research--both for Bellevue and the Mobilities Design Group--and anything else I think may be interesting to share before leaving. After that, this blog will be where I store my running dialog of urban design and mobilities research and highlight my experiences with mobility in Denmark and anywhere else I may visit between there and the Northwest.

Thank you for following - please comment/critique/pester/pass on anything you read on here :)

Cat Silva
catmcsilva@gmail.com