Austin Troy PhD
Professor
Director of Presidential Initiative on Urban & Placed-Based Research
- Urban and Regional Planning Department
Austin Troy is a Professor in CU Denver’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning. His research addresses climate resilience in cities, with a focus on four areas: urban forest management, urban heat mitigation, residential landscape water use, and wildfire-safe community planning. He has published over 50 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, is author of the book The Very Hungry City (Yale University Press, 2012), and has received nearly $3 million dollars in grant funding as Principal Investigator from agencies and foundations including NASA, National Science Foundation, the US Geological Survey, and the US Forest Service. As Co-Principal Investigator he has been on over $30 million in research grants. At CU Denver he was formerly Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Director of the Presidential Initiative on Urban and Place-Based Research. Before coming to Colorado, he was a faculty member for 12 years at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.
In addition to his university work, he is Principal and Co-founder of Spatial Informatics Group, LLC, a consulting company with over 120 employees that works on complex environmental management problem solving and develops open-source software platforms for environmental decision making. He currently serves as a board member for Cottonwood Gulch Foundation, a non-profit outdoor educational organization and camp, and for Greenline Climate, a company that works with landowners to help them generate forest carbon offset credits. He also served for four years as a planning commissioner for the city of Burlington VT. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale College, his Master of Forestry degree from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and his PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of California Berkeley.
Areas of Expertise
Land use policy, environmental planning, green infrastructure planning, sustainable urban water use, urban forestry, urban ecosystem services, GIS, spatial analysis, remote sensing, environmental justice and wildfire mitigation planning.
Education, Licensure & Certifications
DEGREES HELD
- PhD, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. Dissertation Title: Natural Hazard Policy and the Land Market: An Assessment of the Effects of the California Natural Hazard Disclosure Law.
- Master of Forestry, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
- BA, Anthropology, Yale University.
Resumes/CV:
Awards
AWARDS RECEIVED
Research Grants and Contracts
Current
- CU Denver Research Development Office. B. Crawford (PI), A. Troy and K. Kelsey. 2025-26.
$100,000 (including college/department cost share). Resilient cities at the heat-watercarbon nexus. - National Science Foundation. Troy, A., Co-Principal Investigator (Lead PI: Tanya Heikila).
2024-2029. $1.8 million. Building regional climate resilience and social equity through
housing and land use policy. - National Science Foundation. Troy, A. Principal Investigator. 2023-2026. $399,945.
Modeling extreme heat at transit stops and its implications for equity. - USDA Forest Service. Troy, A. Principal Investigator. 2023-2026. $83,000. Fueling
Adaptation: Home Owners' Association and Stewardship Capacity Mapping - National Science Foundation via Innosphere Ventures. Troy, A. Faculty Lead of Subaward
to CU Denver. 2024-2026. $150,000. Colorado - Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine:
Type-2: Scaling the Regional, Technology-Driven, Innovation Ecosystem in Climate
Solutions and Community Resiliency in Colorado and Wyoming.
Completed
- Western Resource Advocates. Troy, A., Principal Investigator. 2021-2022. $21,650.
Enabling Large-Scale Replacement of Non-Essential Turf Project - USDA Forest Service Research Joint Venture Agreement. Troy, A. Principal Investigator.
2022-2023. Denver Urban Field Station - urban sustainability and planning. $7,000 - NASA. Troy, A., Principal Investigator. 2018-2022. $354,613. Earth Observation for US
Ecosystem Accounting. - National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council. Troy, A., Principal Investigator.
2018-2022. $142,219. Deploying Sensors on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to Aid in Urban
Forest Inventory, Species Identification and Health Monitoring - Evolve Seed Grant, Troy, A., awardee. College of Architecture and Planning. $10,000. To
support research for a book project. - National Science Foundation, A.Troy, Co-Principal Investigator (Carrie Makarewicz, LeadPI). 2021. $49,889. Undesigning the redline and reimagining mobility investments to equitably link jobs, affordable housing, and services.
- Design Workshop (as contractor to City of Denver), Troy, A., Lead, 2020-2021, $10,000.
Denver Urban Forest Rules and Regulations Rewrite. Fee for services contract. - Babbitt Center/Lincoln Institute/ Water Research Foundation, Troy, A., Principal
Investigator, 2018-2020. $52,000 (services contract). Modeling Irrigation from Urban
Growth in a Semi-Arid Metropolitan Area - USDA Forest Service. Troy, A., Principal Investigator. 2016-2021. $30,000. Research and
Development for an Urban Ecological Field Station in the Greater Denver Region. - Gates Family Foundation. Troy, A., Co-Principal Investigator. 2018-2020. $35,000. Imagine
a Great Region: The Front Range Forum on Growth (charitable foundation gift) - Denver Housing Authority/ City Craft Ventures (as charitable gift). Troy, A., Principal
Investigator. 2016-2018. $25,000. West Denver Data and Research Fund. - Colorado Health Foundation. Troy, A., Co-Principal Investigator (Michael Jensen, PI). 20162019. $430,000. Creating Healthy Places through Transformational Education and
Design. - City and County of Denver, Department of Parks and Recreation Division of Forestry. Troy,
A., Principal Investigator. 2016-2017. $37,400 (services contract). Mapping urban tree
canopy in Denver. - USDA Forest Service, Troy, A., Principal Investigator. 2017-2019. $25,352. Urban
vegetation and its relation to flows of energy, water, and social capital. - USDA Forest Service. Troy, A., Principal Investigator. 2014-2017. $92,000.Analysis of urban
metabolism as it relates to the built form, environmental design, and population
characteristics of cities.