Sara Hammerschmidt is Senior Director with the Building Healthy Places Initiative at the Urban Land Institute, where she develops content and programs focused on the impact of the built environment on public health. Throughout her career, Sara has done extensive work on issues that lie at the intersection of health and the built environment. 

Sara holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin. where her research focused on developing recommendations for how planning departments across the country can incorporate public health considerations into their work.