People

Dr. Angela Loder is President and Principle Researcher for Greening the City. She is a researcher scientist, strategic planner, and educator with over fifteen years’ experience examining the relationship between the built and natural urban environment and human health and performance outcomes. In addition, she brings over 6 years experience aligning workplace strategy with built environment factors for resilient, thriving workplaces.

Dr. Loder specializes in strategic planning, analysis and translation of complex data to diverse global audiences, and visionary thinking to foster innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration on complex topics. iwbi.work.headshot.2017

Key areas of expertise include:

  • Designing, interpreting, and translating complex data to diverse audiences
  • Understanding the link between policy and health and performance outcomes at multiple scales
  • Using urban planning and cultural geography training to understand the impact of policy and design interventions at multiple scales and in different communities – ranging from regional land-use transportation planning to neighborhoods to individual buildings
  • Impact of access to nature on multiple physical and psychosocial health outcomes
  • Psychosocial workplace factors that influence health, performance, and thriving
  • Demonstrated ability to secure prestigious funding and grants, including the Canada-US Fulbright and a $1.5 million dollar state grant to support public health initiatives, an almost 60% increase from previous funding amounts.
  • Ability to create complex frameworks to measure health and well-being for organizations, such as the 12 Competencies for Measuring Health and Well-being for Organizations co-developed with global research advisors while at the International WELL Building Institute

Current research interests include:

  • How healthy buildings can be integrated with ecological city and planning objectives
  • Aligning sustainability, health, and performance drivers for internal and external reporting
  • Aligning circularity drivers with healthy buildings, including developing a social for circularity framework for the World Business Council on Sustainability
  • How building design and access to nature impacts stress, concentration, and creativity
  • Interdisciplinary collaboration to move health in buildings forward.

Dr. Loder’s doctoral research looked at the impact that visual and physical access to a green roof in Chicago and Toronto had on office workers’ concentration, stress, and creativity. Dr. Loder’s research is the first large-scale multi-method study on the health impacts of access to green roofs in urban areas.

Dr. Loder has worked with multiple levels of government, non-profits, and organizations. She routinely works with other academics and consultants on larger projects and grants. She was Vice President, Research for the International WELL Building Institute from 2017-2023, where in addition to managing the survey provider program and global research advisory, she helped create new research solutions and piloted research products for global clients. She has been a core member of the Health in Buildings Roundtable (HiBR) with the NIH since 2007, is a board member of the Institute for the Built Environment, and part of the first cohort of WELL Faculty and a WELL AP. She has presented her research at numerous international conferences, and has published in academic and popular media. Dr. Loder is a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar and mentor to several US Fulbright students. Her book “Small-Scale Urban Greening: Creating Places of Health, Creativity, and Ecological Sustainability”  was published with Routledge in 2020.

See LinkedIn Profile here.