| History | Roderick Lawrence was awarded a Bachelor of Architecture (First Class Honours) from the University of Adelaide. He then gained a Master of Letters from Cambridge University in and a Doctorate of Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. While employed at the University of Geneva he returned to South Australia in 1986 as a Research Fellow. He worked with staff across all tertiary institutions in South Australia, including Don Johnson (Flinders University), Don Langmead (University of South Australia) and Gavin Young (South Australian Centre for Settlement Studies) on his research project ‘Colonial Houses and Domestic Life in South Australia from 1836 to 1900’.
His research interests include urban ecology, housing, health and quality of life in cities. Lawrence has served as a consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and was a scientific advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) programs on Housing and Health and the Healthy Cities project. From 1998 to 2003 he was chairperson of the Evaluation Advisory Committee of the WHO–EURO Healthy Cities project. He is currently Professor at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Geneva. Since 1997 he has been an Associate Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. |