The 2012 London Olympics will have thousands of tourists and visitors, but Eva Kassens-Noor, assistant professor in the School of Planning, Design and Construction, will not be one of them.
After ten years of Olympic research and traveling to five Olympic host cities, Kassens-Noor will see the action from a new seat.
Beginning July 27, she will be on her couch watching the Olympics - the topic of her recently published book that focuses on how cities change because of the Olympic Games.
"Planning Olympic Legacies: Transport Dreams and Urban Realities" was published in June in the United States.
"The research for the book goes back probably about ten years when I started looking into how airports change or prepare for the peak demands that the Olympics impose on the airports and cities themselves," she said.
To aid in her research, Kassens-Noor was granted interviews with key stakeholders in the planning process and had access to the Olympic archives. She called herself lucky to have been given these kinds of opportunities.
So what's next for Kassens-Noor?
"I think I will continue down this path," she said of her plans to research how other mega events, like the FIFA World Cup and the world fairs, affect urban developments.
Aside from her research on Olympic host cities, Kassens-Noor teaches three classes at MSU in the School of Planning, Design and Construction.
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