IAPS Activities

The IAPS bi-annual conference will soon be held in July in Rome, and we hope to see many of you there. The IAPS board will also be seeing a change in some of its committee members this year and is currently undergoing the election process. Among others, two of the iapsREN convening committee, Sarah Payne and Kayleigh Wyles, have been nominated to be members of the IAPS board. We would appreciate members’ support during the voting process, so that we can help represent the views of the iapsREN community through the main organisation and help further its success.

Our next newsletter will be in October, rather than July due to the conference, so in the meantime, enjoy the summer and hopefully see you at the iapsREN meeting in Rome and in the seminars.

Conferences

Upcoming deadlines:

• International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS), 8th-13th July 2018, in Rome, Italy. Deadline date for early bird registration is 22nd April 2018

• British Environmental Psychology Conference (BrEPS), 13th-14th September 2018, in Surrey, UK. Deadline for abstracts is 1st June 2018

Upcoming conferences:

• Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), 6th-9th June 2018, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

• Nature Connections, 20th June 2018, in Derby, UK

• International Congress of Applied Psychology (ICAP), 26-30th June 2018, in Montreal, Canada

• International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS) conference, 8-13th July 2018, in Rome, Italy

• ABC: Activating Biophilic Cities, 4th-5th September, in London, UK

• International People Plant Symposium (IPPS), 11th-13th October, in Malmö, Sweden

• Valuing Nature Conference, 13th-14th November, in Cardiff, UK

We look forward to members meeting up at these various conferences. Please let us know of any other events that would interest fellow members, and if you would like to advertise a call for contributions to a symposium using our website and twitter.

New Publications

• Kuo, M., Browining, M.H.E.M. & Penner, M.L. (2018). Do Lessons in Nature Boost Subsequent Classroom Engagement? Refueling Students in Flight. Frontiers in Psychology

• Lymeus, F., Lindberg, P. and Hartig, T. (2018). Building mindfulness bottom-up: Meditation in natural settings supports open monitoring and attention restoration. Consciousness and Cognition, 59, pp.40-56.

• Berto R., Barbiero G., Barbiero P. & Senes G. (2018). An Individual’s Connection to Nature Can Affect Perceived Restorativeness of Natural Environments. Some Observations about Biophilia. Behavioral Sciences, 8(3). 

If you have recently published and would like this added to the iapsREN library and communicated in the next letter, please email us.

Vacancies

PhD: DeStress: Understanding and measuring soundscapes to create salutogenic environments
Deadline: 30th April 2018
Location: Heriot-Watt University, UK
Description: Salutogenic environments support people’s health and wellbeing, thus salutogenic soundscapes (sounds we perceive in a place) are a vital ingredient to those environments. The PhD will be associated with, and extend on, an EPSRC funded project called DeStress, Designing and Engineering Soundscapes To enable Restorative Environments for Sustainable Societies. Project DeStress will have identified publicly accepted quiet and calm areas in three UK urban cities. These quiet and calm areas can be examined further in this project to gain a greater understanding of what makes these positive environments for people to visit, pass through, and cognitively/emotionally restore. This PhD will also explore which soundscape assessment methods and ‘health and wellbeing’ indicators are the most appropriate to consistently utilise when evaluating public urban places. The urban places we are particularly interested in exploring are those that provide opportunities for cognitive and emotional restoration or those that encourage active behaviours such as walking and cycling. Please note, this PhD scholarship covers tuition fees and the applicant will need to cover their own living expenses. There is also a related Post-Doctoral Research Associate post for those with an acoustics background.

Member Spotlight

“This newsletter’s photo was taken by me, Aaron Hipp, today, 17 April 2018, at the Azalea Gardens across the street from North Carolina State University’s campus. I took this photo while having a walking meeting with a student.

I am currently an Associate Professor of Community Health and Sustainability in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at NC State. My work focuses on how where we live, work, and play can be designed to encourage movement, such as having access to interesting paths to walk along during meetings. The student and I were discussing intergenerational visits to parks, including behaviors, and expectations. Such as a parent sitting on a bench while their child plays on the playground and how these affordances and behaviors may or may not match the needs of the individuals and the design of the space.”

Please share your favourite photos and have them and you featured in future newsletters and on the website. Send your photos and information via email.

Contact iapsREN

You can contact the iapsREN Convening Committee via the following emails:

• Convenors: Carlos Galán-Díaz and Sarah Payne (REN_convenors@iaps-association.org)
• Publications & Events: Femke Beute  (REN_dissemination@iaps-association.org)
• Information Technology: Kayleigh Wyles (REN_support@iaps-association.org)
• Follow us on Twitter @iapsREN