Stephanie Carlisle

Stephanie Carlisle is an architect and ecologist whose work focuses on the interaction between the constructed and natural environment, including life cycle assessment (LCA), urban ecology, environmental justice, and climate policy. She is a research scientist at the Carbon Leadership Forum, where she works to develop open-access embodied carbon and LCA data, tools, and methods to support the building sector in radically decarbonizing construction.

Stephanie joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design in 2014. She is presently a lecturer in Urban Ecology in the Department of Landscape Architecture and a lecturer in Building Technology in the Department of Architecture. Her classes train students to expand their design practice and research skills to address the pressing challenges of climate change and social justice. 

Previously, Stephanie worked for nine years as a Principal and Environmental Researcher at KieranTimberlake Architects in Philadelphia, where she helped lead the office’s research on embodied carbon, material health, landscape ecology, and environmental impacts. Since 2012, she worked on the development team for Tally, a software tool that enables architects and engineers to conduct full-building life cycle assessments during design. Since then, she has trained hundreds of designers in LCA, carbon accounting, and strategies to combat climate change in built projects. Most recently, she serves on the Steering Committee for US Architects Declare a Climate, Justice, and Biodiversity Emergency, a climate action group pushing for radical change in architectural practice and education. 

Her work as has published widely in books, journals, and popular press including Health Design Thinking (MIT Press 2020), Embodied Energy and Design (Lars Müller Publishers 2017), Green Roof Ecosystems (Springer 2015), International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Buildings and Technology, Cities and the Environment, DOMUS, Architecture Magazine, Fast Company, and others. She has conducted numerous workshops for professional and academic audiences, and has lectured, taught and served as a critic in several US and international design programs. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Scenario Journal, an online publication devoted to interdisciplinary conversations between landscape architecture, urban design, engineering, and ecology.

Stephanie received a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry, an M. Arch from Yale School of Architecture, and a BA in Religion and Anthropology form Wesleyan University. 

Recent Publications:

Carlisle, Stephanie. “I’ve been polluting the planet for years. I’m not an oil exec—I’m an architect.” Fast Company, January 2020. 

Carlisle, Stephanie and Billie Faircloth. “Spatial Data Mapping.” in Health Design Thinking, ed. Bon Ku and Ellen Lupton. MIT Press and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: 52-57 (2020) 

Pevzner, Nicholas and Stephanie Carlisle. “SCENARIO 7: Power.” Scenario Journal, Issue 7 (January 2020). 

Carlisle, Stephanie. “Empowering Architects to Take on Carbon.” Architecture League of New York, December 2019. 

Carlisle, Stephanie and Nicholas Pevzner. “Mongolian Energy Futures: Repowering Ulaanbaatar Challenges of Radical Energy Sector Decarbonization.” Policy Report, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. October 2019.

Carlisle, Stephanie and Nicholas Pevzner. “Eating the Crust: Landscapes of extraction and global mining.” DOMUS, March 2019. p276 – 285.

Carlisle, Stephanie and Nicholas Pevzner. “Landscapes of Migration.” Scenario Journal, Issue 6 (Summer 2016)