Congratulations to Rylie Rayner on Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award!

Congratulations to Rylie Rayner, recipient of the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award by the Office of Undergraduate Research, for her insightful work on how parks are planned and placed across the United States.  Rylie collaborated with Professor Alessandro Rigolon from the College of Architecture & Planning. Her research sheds light on access to green spaces—an issue that impacts both community well-being and environmental health. 

Rylie is a senior majoring in Environmental and Sustainability Studies with a capstone in Ecojustice Education and a minor in Urban Ecology. 

What was your research about, and why does it matter? 

I worked with Professor Alessandro Rigolon in the Department of City of Metropolitan and Planning, and we worked on park equity and the distribution of parks within cities. So I analyzed around forty park plans across the United States, and we went through all the park plans with the rubric that we created. We looked at accessibility, community engagement, and whether park plans are being inclusive and equitable. We also looked at where these parks are being developed, like are they being developed in areas that are predominantly white or in close proximity to minority populations?

Why is your research important? 

I reached out to a bunch of Professors to do research because it’s required through the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program to do either research or an internship. I thought working with a professor would be better for getting hands-on experience and working one-on-one. Professor Alessandro gave me a list of three ideas, and I said I wanted to do park plans because I’m very interested in how we go about implementing green spaces into our cities. I believe that nature and humans can interact with one another, and we don’t have to be so separated. I want to know where these parks are being designed, and I want to know how to make them inclusive. Parks have functions for the environment - they improve health, they store water, they absorb CO2. They also provide a place to recreate in free, open space. They improve the health of people, so I felt like I could knock out two birds with one stone. 

We used the Trust of Public Lands (TPL) database, which includes an Equity score that is based on factors like how close are parks to low-income communities, how close are they to different minority populations, and things like that. Then, I picked the ten highest, ten medium, and ten lowest scores based on what the TPL gave me. 

What was a frustrating part of your research, and how did you work through it? 

I think the hardest part of my research was finding the Park plans, because a lot of park didn’t have updated plans within the past five years. I had to decrease the sample size, and we ended up doing fifteen cities because a lot of park plans were at least five years out of date. Park plans can be up to 300 pages long, and I started off with around 40 park plans and narrowed it down to 15. 

What was one of the most rewarding parts of doing your research? 

I think the most rewarding thing for me was learning how to do research. I’ve never done research like this before - you’ve collected all this information, now what are you going to do with it? How do you draw a conclusion from what you’ve pulled? It was so rewarding, because now I can say that I know how to do some research and I have hands-on experience, and I’ve worked with professors. 

It was also rewarding to see a positive outcome, because a conclusion that we drew from this was that a majority of the cities in the TPL score that had a high equity score also had really high scores according to our rubric. It was nice to see that parks are putting in the effort to be more equitable and are working for something in the future. 

Do you have any tips for other students who might be trying to get research? 

You have to put yourself out there, and you have to be the first to email because professors typically are not coming to students with research, so I put my foot out there and emailed like fifteen professors and just started a conversation. I shared what I was interested in and asked if they have any opportunities available. Just put yourself out there, I was scared and I did it, and I don’t regret it. 

Ask questions all the time. Don’t be shy, and always be curious! Always have something on your mind because there’s just so much to learn, and keep an open mind. What I’ve learned throughout this experience is that, I was so shy and not talkative, and then I branched out and now I’m so proud of where I’ve gone because I’m sending the first email and reaching out and doing all these things! There’s a lot out there if you take the first step. 

Now that your research is done, what are you looking forward to? 

I’m honestly looking forward to making a change. This is why I got into this degree, and this major. I want to be the change, and I want to make a difference in the world. I want to be out there doing something, whether it’s finding ways to put more greenspace into cities so we can reduce the urban heat island effect, or you know, finding ways to store water, especially in the Salt Lake.