Keenan Gibbons

Keenan began studying urban heat islands with drone technology a decade ago, research that expanded with a SmithGroup Exploration Grant. “It’s taken on a life of its own,” he marvels, garnering global news coverage, shared at conferences around the world, and contributing to a teaching appointment at the University of Michigan. Keenan’s design work often features the integration of green infrastructure to cool cities, including the largest raingarden in the Midwest on a blighted industrial site. "We give a little of ourselves to every project,” he remarks. “It’s especially rewarding when they’re accomplished for the stewardship of the Great Lakes watershed. I grew up by Lake Michigan and hold our water resources sacred." Keenan is also an avid student of the Great Lakes’ “almost invisible history” prior to Indian Removal. “I’ve read thousands of pages of historical volumes about our indigenous past,” he says, “revealing the most compelling, not-so-distant history in my own backyard.”