Peter Stempel

Peter Stempel is an artist, social scientist, and educator. His research integrates peoples’ qualitative concerns about climate change with physical impact models to create visualizations used for hazard and risk communication. These visualizations are tested in diverse coastal communities to better understand how visual communication may be best employed for the implementation of natural and nature-based features, climate mitigation, emergency management, and planning. This work expands the diversity of engaged persons and broadens the range of hazards and concerns that can be modeled and depicted.

Stempel received his PhD in marine affairs from the University of Rhode Island. He was the principal of a small architecture and planning firm in Southwest Utah and founded a community non-profit that provided planning support to rural communities prior to his doctoral studies. He has bachelor's degrees in architecture and fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. His teaching career has spanned several universities and colleges in the US and abroad. He is currently an associate professor of landscape architecture with a focus on water-related resilience at Pennsylvania State University and a member of the Pennsylvania State Institute of Energy and Environment.