About
Hillary Quarles is a PhD candidate in Geography, Planning, and Design at the University of Colorado Denver. Her interdisciplinary research explores the spatial politics of food systems, platform labor, and urban transformation. With a background in landscape architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a BA in English from Yale, her work integrates critical geographic theory with a deep commitment to public scholarship, community gardens, and social justice. She has taught courses on globalization, urban sustainability, and political ecology, and her current research—funded by the NSF—examines how third-party food delivery platforms reshape domestic and urban space. Her recent publications appear in Cultural Studies and Digital Geography and Society, and she has presented internationally on platform urbanism, food apartheid, and socio-technical imaginaries. Hillary also brings two decades of professional experience in landscape planning, food access, and participatory design.
Key Research and Academic Highlights
Publications
Quarles, H., & Simon, G. L. (2025). Platforming space: How food delivery platforms optimize users through physical, digital, and virtual space. Digital Geography and Society, 9, 100134. doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2025.100134
Quarles, H. (2025). Emancipatory imaginaries: the platform transformation of Denver’s urban food system. Cultural Studies, 1–21. doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2025.2538530
Quarles, H. (2022). Digital Space & Place. Confluence: Student Journal of Geography and Environmental Science, 1(1). doi.org/10.25261/ConfluenceUCD_1_1_HQ
Quarles, H. (2025). Book Review of Leopoldina Fortunati’s The Arcana of Reproduction Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital. Gender, Place & Culture, 1-3. doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2025.2557774
Philosophy and Course Highlights
Teaching
As an educator in the fields of Urban Geography, Food Studies, Platform Studies, and Planning, I teach courses on the evolving challenges and opportunities within urban space and the intricate connections between food systems, technological platforms, and sustainable planning. I ground learning activities in each field by fostering critical thinking, interdisciplinary perspectives, and real-world applications. For Urban Geography, I use a combination of theoretical frameworks, case studies, and research projects to cultivate a deep understanding of the systemic social, economic, and cultural inequities that shape lived experiences within urban spaces. In Food Studies, I integrate historical perspectives, global food systems analysis, and the ethics of food production and consumption to explore the interconnectedness of food access, culture, and sustainability. In Platform Studies, I use student experiences with technology to critically assess the evolving role of platforms on urban planning, transportation, and community engagement. For Planning, my teaching centers on the importance of community engagement, participatory planning processes, and the integration of social justice principles within sustainable development. In practice, these areas overlap. The social, economic, political, cultural and environmental factors that affect one area are entangled with the others. Overall, my teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that education is a transformative process that empowers students to become active and informed contributors to the complexities of urban life.
Courses
Globalization and Regional Development 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022
The Politics of Nature 2025
Landscape Design Studio: The Community Nutrition Teaching Garden 2024
Urban Studies and Planning 2023
Presentations
International Food and Communications Conference, 2025, France. Presentation entitled Emancipatory imaginaries: the platform transformation of Denver’s urban food system.
American Association of Geography Conference, 2025. Presentation entitled Delivering the Cyborg: technological fixes of ‘women drivers’ in the polycrisis.
Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and the Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Conference, 2024. Presentation entitled What’s for dinner? How platform automation is changing our relationship to food and conditions of food apartheid.
American Association of Geography Conference, 2024. Presentation entitled The Platform-ed Future of Food: convenience, power and apartheid in urban food imaginaries.
International Food and Communications Conference, 2023, Sweden. Presentation entitled Platformed-ed Food: convenience, power and apartheid in urban food imaginaries.
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference, 2023, United Kingdom. Presentation entitled Denver’s Last Mile: Unwaged labor, space and third-party food delivery.
American Association of Geography Conference, 2023. Presentation entitled Embedded, Immaterial and Embodied Unwaged Labor in Third-party Food Delivery.
American Association of Geography Conference, 2022. Presentation entitled Denver’s Last Mile: The People and Patterns of Third-Party Food Delivery in Denver, Colorado.
Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference, 2021. Presentation entitled Third-Party Food Delivery and the Chicken Sandwich + Fries: How Food Delivery Platforms are Changing our Relationship to Food.
International Food and Communications Conference, 2021, Slovenia. Presentation entitled Third-Party Food Delivery: Brokering a Sociotechnical Imaginary.
University of Kentucky Department of Political Ecology (DOPE) Conference, 2021. Presentation entitled Denver’s Last Food Mile: The People and Patterns of Home Food Delivery in Denver, Colorado.
Contact
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Research and Teaching 