Freixas’ research project Segregation by Design to receive Provost Impact Award
2025-04-10 • Sam Fox School
Associate Professor Catalina Freixas has received a Provost Impact Award through WashU’s Confluence Collaborative for her research project, Segregation by Design. She was selected from more than 70 nominations and dozens of applications.
Segregation by Design is a long-term, community-engaged project that analyzes racial segregation in American cities, using St. Louis as a starting point to study causes, effects, and mitigation strategies for residential segregation. The three pillars of the project are: analyzing historical and structural causes of segregation, implementing innovative neighborhood-based strategies for urban stabilization and revitalization, and promoting a sense of shared identity among St. Louis residents.
Freixas, who won a Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethic of Service Award this spring, has taught Segregation by Design as interdisciplinary course since 2016. The course brings perspectives from community members, academics, policymakers, and designers to students as they explore the impacts of segregation in historical and local context. Throughout the project, she has built a meaningful partnership with the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations, which pairs each class with a community to ensure local ownership and commitment.
The university will honor the awardees at a ceremony April 16 at Hillman Hall.
Segregation by Design: Conversations and Calls for Action in St. Louis
Segregation by Design discusses racial segregation in American cities. Using St. Louis as a point of departure, it examines the causes and consequences of residential segregation, and proposes potential mitigation strategies. While an introduction, timeline, and historical overview frame the subject, nine topic-specific conversations—between invited academics, policy makers, and urban professionals—provide the main structure. Each of these conversations is contextualized by a photograph, an editors’ note, and an essay written by a respected current or former St. Louisan. The essayists respond to the conversations by speaking to the impacts of segregation and by suggesting innovative policy and design tactics from their professional or academic perspective. The purpose of the book, therefore, is not to provide original research on residential segregation, but rather to offer a unique collection of insightful, transdisciplinary reflections on the experience of segregation in America and how it might be addressed.
Publication Details
Segregation by Design: Conversations and Calls for Action in St. Louis
Editors: Catalina Freixas and Mark Abbott
Springer, 2019
621 Pages
ISBN 9783319729558
About the Confluence Collaborative
The St. Louis Confluence Collaborative for Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Practice serves as the organizing platform for community-engaged research, teaching, and practice across WashU, focused on St. Louis needs and intentional, sustainable partnerships.
The William H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award is designed to elevate WashU’s investment in the St. Louis Region by encouraging and rewarding community-engaged research through academic-community member teams that enhances our impact in St. Louis. The Confluence Award honors and recognizes faculty members for ongoing and completed research that focuses on interdisciplinary community-engaged research that exemplifies impact, innovation, and deep engagement with the region.