Visiting Scholar, University of Cambridge
Natasha Balwit-Cheung is a researcher and urban planner whose current work is focused on planning for shallow geothermal energy utilization, and analysis of the material and life cycle impacts of ground source heat pumps and thermo-active geostructures across multiple scales. She is a PhD student in the Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment at the University of Cambridge and is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Built Environment at Berkeley.
Before this, she worked on comprehensive plans and community planning for public clients as a senior planner at the landscape architecture and planning firm Sites Southwest. Before that, as a researcher at Architecture 2030, she worked with city planning and sustainability departments to analyze building sector energy use and emissions and suggest policy interventions to reduce them. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT, where she was also an Arts Scholar, admissions blogger, and student researcher in the Urban Metabolism Group. Her writing has been published in CityLab, Scope of Work, The Atlantic, ARCHITECT, The Drift, The New Farmer’s Almanac, and elsewhere.