Dr. Galen Cranz, Professor of Architecture, is a sociologist, designer, and certified teacher of the Alexander Technique (a system of body-mind postural education).  She teaches the social and cultural components of environmental design, exemplified in Ethnography for Designers. She pioneered Body Conscious Design, based on how the body meets the environment.  She critiqued of the practice of chair sitting from a somatic point of view in The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design. She also writes about post-occupancy effects of designs on inhabitants’ experience, urban parks (The Politics of Park Design), and taste as a communication process in design.