Dr. Laura Huntoon teaches urban planning and international development at the University of Arizona. She has developed coursework on economic and social development in the border region due to migration. Her research focuses on mega-events and their influence on the economic and social landscape, as well as the effects of migration on local settlements and immigrant adaptation to new societies.
Dr. Huntoon has received the Outstanding Teaching Award, College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona. The American Planning Association awarded her the Best of ACSP Award for scholarly research at the American Collegiate Schools of Planning meetings.
The Arizona chapter of the American Planning Association awarded Dr. Huntoon and a team of fifteen Masters of Science in Planning students the Student Planning Project award for their work on the “Economic Development Strategic Plan for the City of South Tucson” project.
Before joining the University of Arizona, Dr. Huntoon was on the faculty at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and at Bryn Mawr College's Department of Economics. She was visiting professor at the University of Seville, Spain. Huntoon has worked as a planner in Seville, Spain and served as an advisor to the Spanish Ministry of Labor's Forum for the Integration of Immigrants. She has worked on urban revitalization plans in Panama City, Panama and Tijuana, México. She has consulted to the City of Busan, South Korea on the development of a new logistics port and related facilities.
Dr. Huntoon has been a member of the American Planning Association since 1991. She served as the Regional Planning Track Chair for the American Collegiate Schools of Planning annual meetings and has been head of the European Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.
She holds doctorate and master degrees in regional science from the University Of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in government from Harvard University. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
