Hadley Arnold
Executive Director
ARID LANDS INSTITUTE
Woodbury University
7500 Glenoaks Boulevard
Burbank CA 91510
818-394-3335
hadley.arnold@aridlands.org
Hadley Arnold serves as Executive Director of the Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University. ALI’s mission is to advance design innovation at the nexus of water, energy, and climate change.
Hadley work focuses on bringing water scarcity and climate adaptation to the forefront of design education, practice, and policy in drylands. At the same time, ALI brings together designers with scientists, policy makers, and citizens to harness the leadership potential of design vision. Hadley has built ongoing collaborations between ALI and the American Institute of Architects, public water agencies throughout the region, UCLA’s Water Resources Group, and design programs in 28 states and 15 countries. ALI research and programs have been funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the US Environmental Protection Agency, Metropolitan Water District and private gifts and grants.
In the classroom, Hadley’s work focuses on hydrologic urbanism. How do urban planning, architectural design, and building systems, ancient and contemporary, uncouple water from energy; embrace hydrologic variability; sow social equity; and support diverse cultures to adapt and persist in drylands? She has a particular interest in the role history, the arts, and the humanities can play in informing contemporary engineering and the design of resilience.
ALI’s current public initiative, Divining LA, is a multi-year collaboration designed to advance research, design vision, and ambitious public engagement for a water-resilient future.
Hadley received her BA from Harvard and her M.Arch. from SCI-Arc. She has taught urban history, theory, and design studios at SCI-Arc, UCLA, and Woodbury. She has lectured extensively in the US and abroad.