Catalina Freixas

Catalina Freixas has taught at Washington University in St. Louis since 2004. She is engaged in urban humanities research and practice, focusing on neighborhood resiliency. Through her current research, Freixas seeks to use Wraparound Theory as the intellectual framework to treat neighborhood problems comprehensively through a community-engaged model. Her ultimate research objective is to use her current neighborhood project as the first step in developing a scalable interventionist methodology. Freixas’ ongoing research attempts to identify characteristics of resilience as integrated processes and systems based on a triple-bottom-line assessment. Her goal is to use this research to generate quantitative eco-urbanism strategies that can be utilized to promote resilient communities in a wide range of urban settings. She is working with the Saint Louis Association of Community Organization and Saint Louis Public Schools to undertake a pilot project in the KingsVille community, a highly-distressed area in North St. Louis.

Freixas’ previous research sought to better understand the causes and consequences of urban racial residential segregation and generate mitigation tactics. This project led to “Segregation by Design: Conversations and Calls for Action in St. Louis” (2019). Freixas weaves her approach to resilient design into her studios and seminars, which have significantly impacted students in the Sam Fox School’s undergraduate and graduate programs. In her research and teaching, Freixas previously focused on biomimicry — which involves studying nature’s best ideas and then imitating them to solve human problems — as the ultimate goal for sustainable design. She is a member of the bio-inspired community and a think tank advisor. Multiple grants have supported her work and have been critical in building her partners’ capacity to secure funding to advance their collaborative work and research. Freixas’ has shared her research widely at national and international conferences and in peer-reviewed papers and publications.