People

Penn IUR is affiliated with more than 200 experts in the field of urbanism. Its Faculty Fellows program identifies faculty at the University of Pennsylvania with a demonstrated interest in urban research; the Penn IUR Scholars program identifies urban scholars outside of Penn; and the Penn IUR Fellows program identifies expert urban practitioners. Together, these programs foster a community of scholars and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration.

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Penn IUR Scholar

Arthur Acolin

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Assistant Professor and Bob Filley Endowed Chair, Department of Real Estate, University of Washington

Areas of Interest

    About

    Arthur Acolin is an Assistant Professor and Bob Filley Endowed Chair at the Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington with a broad interest in housing economics and a focus on international housing policy and finance. He completed his PhD in Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California in 2017. Recent research projects include a study of the presence of discrimination against different immigrant groups in the rental market in France with Raphael Bostic and Gary Painter, an examination of the effect of non-traditional mortgages on homeownership in the US with Xudong An, Raphael Bostic and Susan Wachter and the development of housing affordability indicators incorporating location for the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, Brazil with Richard Green. Prior to doing his Ph.D., Acolin was a Research Associate at the Penn Institute for Urban Research working on housing, urbanization and economic development issues. He obtained a master in Urban Policy from the London School of Economics and Sciences Po Paris and an undergraduate degree in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

    Selected Publications

    Acolin, Arthur, and Domenic Vitiello. “Who owns Chinatown: Neighbourhood preservation and change in Boston and Philadelphia.” Urban Studies (2017): 0042098017699366.

    Acolin, Arthur, Xudong An, Raphael W. Bostic, and Susan M. Wachter. “Homeownership and Nontraditional and Subprime Mortgages.” Housing Policy Debate 27.3 (2017): 393-418.

    Acolin, Arthur, Raphael Bostic, and Gary Painter. “A field study of rental market discrimination across origins in France.” Journal of Urban Economics 95 (2016): 49-63.

    Acolin, Arthur, Jesse Bricker, Paul Calem, and Susan Wachter. “Borrowing constraints and homeownership.” The American Economic Review 106.5 (2016): 625-629.

    Acolin, Arthur, and Richard K. Green. “Measuring housing affordability in São Paulo metropolitan region: Incorporating location.” Cities 62 (2017): 41-49.

    Faculty Fellow

    David Barnes

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    Director of Health and Societies Major and Associate Professor

    About

    David Barnes is an Associate Professor and Director of the Health and Societies Major in the Department of History and Sociology of Science in the School of Arts and Sciences, where he teaches the history of medicine and public health. Prior to joining Penn, Barnes taught for a year at the Institute for Liberal Arts at Emory University and for seven years in the History of Science Department at Harvard University. His current research is concentrated on the history of infectious disease, epidemiology, and public health; nineteenth-century urban European social and cultural history; and the politics of international disease control programs. He has a forthcoming book on the history of the Lazaretto Quarantine Station, located outside of Philadelphia.

    Selected Publications

    Barnes, David. 2014. “Cargo, ‘Infection,’ Cargo, and the Logic of Quarantine in the Nineteenth Century.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 88(1).

    Barnes, David. 2010. “Targeting Patient Zero.” In Tuberculosis Then and Now: Perspectives on the History of an Infectious Disease, 49-71, edited by Flurin Condrau and Michael Worboys.  Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

    Barnes, David. 2006. The Great Stink of Paris and the Nineteenth-Century Struggle against Filth and Germs. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Barnes, David. 2002. “Scents and Sensibilities: Disgust and the Meanings of Odors in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris.” Historical Reflections/Réflexions historiques 28: 21-49.

    Barnes, David. 1 995. The Making of a Social Disease: Tuberculosis in Nineteenth-Century France. University of California Press.

    Faculty Fellow

    Eugénie L. Birch

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    Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education

    Chair of the Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning

    Co-Director, Penn Institute for Urban Research

    About

    Eugenie Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education. She teaches courses in global urbanization and the doctoral seminar and serves as chair, the Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning, co-director, of Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor, City in the 21st Century Series, University of Penn Press, and co-editor, SSRN Urban Research e-journal. With Penn IUR she recently completed a project “Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Connecticut’s Higher Education System,” for the state of Connecticut.

    Professor Birch’s current research focuses on global urbanization with recent publications including: Slums, How Informal Real Estate Markets Work, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press (2016) (edited with Susan Wachter, Shahana Chattaraj); “Midterm Report: Will Habitat III Make a Difference to Global Urban Development?” Journal of the American Planning Association 84:4 (Fall 2016); “The Institutions of Metropolitan Governance,” in D.A. Gomez-Alvarez, E. Moreno and R. Rajack (eds), Steering the Metropolis: Metropolitan Governance for Sustainable Urban Development (Nairobi: UN Habitat, 2017); “Inclusion and Innovation: The Many Forms of Stakeholder Engagement in Habitat III,” Citiscape (July 2017); “Implementing the New Urban Agenda in the United States, Building on a Firm Foundation,” Informationen zur Raumentwicklung (Information on Spatial Development) (Summer 2017).

    Professor Birch has been active in the field’s professional and civic organizations in the United States and abroad. She is president, General Assembly of Partners (GAP), the engagement platform for the implementation of the UN’s New Urban Agenda and associated global agreements, co-chair, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group on Cities, and an Associate Editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. In the past, she has been president, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning; president, Society of American City and Regional Planning History; president, International Planning History Society; and co-editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. She has been a member of the Planning Accreditation Board, having served as its chair from 2004-2006. She has been a member of the editorial boards of Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of Planning History, Journal of Planning Education, and Research and Planning Perspectives. In the early 1990s, she was a member of the New York City Planning Commission, and in 2002, she served on the jury to select the designers for the World Trade Center site. She has chaired the Board of Trustees of the Municipal Art Society of New York and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the Regional Plan Association of New York.

    Professor Birch lectures widely. She has been Visiting Scholar, Queens University, Ontario, Canada; Foreign Scholar, University of Hong Kong; and Visiting Professor, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. In May 2017, she delivered the keynote address, “Making Cities Safe, Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable,” at the Dresden Nexus Conference, Dresden, Germany, and “Post Habitat III Stakeholder Engagement: An Update” at the Wilson Center, Washington, DC.

    The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning has given her three awards: the Distinguished Educator Award in recognition of her teaching and research (2009), the Jay Chatterjee Award for Distinguished Service which “recognizes an individual whose exceptional service, actions and leadership have had a lasting and positive impact on the ACSP”(2006), and the Margarita McCoy Award, “in recognition of her outstanding contribution to furthering the advancement of women in the planning academy” (1994). The Society of American City and Regional Planning History awarded her its Lawrence C. Gerckens Prize (2009) in recognition of her contributions to planning history. The American Planning Association honored her with their APA President’s Award in 2013.  This award is given out every other year in recognition of leadership in the field of planning. In 2000, she was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners and made a member (honorary) of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

    The statement made by Professor Birch at the closing ceremony of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) can be found here:  http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/watch/professor-of-education-and-research-of-university-of-pennsylvania-habitat-iii-closure-ceremony/5179115593001 

    Selected Publications

    Birch, Eugenie. 2017. “The Institutions of Metropolitan Governance.” In Steering the Metropolis: Metropolitan Governance for Sustainable Urban Development, edited by D.A. Gomez-Alvarez, E. Moreno, and R. Rajack. Nairobi: UN Habitat.

    Birch, Eugenie. 2017. “Inclusion and Innovation: The Many Forms of Stakeholder Engagement in Habitat III.” Citiscape (July).

    Birch, Eugenie. 2017. “Implementing the New Urban Agenda in the United States, Building on a Firm Foundation.” Informationen zur Raumentwicklung (Information on Spatial Development) (Summer).

    Birch, Eugenie, Susan Wachter, and Shahana Chattaraj , eds. 2016. Slums, How Informal Real Estate Markets Work. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Birch, Eugenie. 2016. “Midterm Report: Will Habitat III Make a Difference to Global Urban Development?” Journal of the American Planning Association 84:4. 

    Fellow

    Monica Brezzi

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    Head, Governance Indicators and Performance Evaluation Division, OECD

    Areas of Interest

      About

      Monica Brezzi is Head of the Governance Indicators Division at OECD. Her current activities focus on the analysis of regional comparative advantages and the assessment of policies to reduce inequalities in the access to key services for citizens. She has recently contributed to design a web mapping tool to help decision makers and citizens develop a better knowledge of their society using statistical information. Before joining OECD, she worked for the Ministry of Economic Development in Italy where she contributed to design and launch a performance-based policy to measure the efficiency of local public services. 

      Affiliated PhD Student

      Veronica Brownstone

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      Phd Candidate, Hispanic Studies, School of Arts & Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

      About

      Veronica Brownstone is a fourth year doctoral student in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation explores how contemporary Central American cultural production deals with the current crisis of disposable labor power. Drawing on the intersections of political economy, critical race theory, and class politics, her research asks what literature and film tell us about the political textures of today’s surplus populations. Of particular interest to her work are the dynamics of the informal, service, and migrant sectors as they relate to subject formation and collectivity. Veronica holds a BA with Honors in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from McGill University. 

      Faculty Fellow

      William Burke-White

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      Professor of Law

      School/Department

      Areas of Interest

        About

        William Burke-White is a Professor of Law at Penn Law. An expert on international law and global governance, Burke-White served in the Obama Administration from 2009-2011 on Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff, providing the Secretary direct policy advice on multilateral diplomacy and international institutions. He was principal drafter of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), Secretary Clinton’s hallmark foreign policy and institutional reform effort. From 2014-2019 Burke-White has served as the Inaugural Director of Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s interdisciplinary international affairs institute. Building Perry World House from the ground up, Burke-White established a cutting-edge policy think tank embedded within Penn’s academic community and recruited staff, faculty, and visiting policy fellows from across the globe. Burke-White has written extensively in the fields of international law and institutions, with a focus on international criminal and international economic law. His work has addressed issues of post-conflict justice; the International Criminal Court; international human rights, and international arbitration. In 2008 he received the A. Leo Levin Award and in 2007 the Robert A. Gorman award for Excellence in Teaching.

        Selected Publications

        Burke-White, William. 2015. “Power Shifts in International Law: Structural Realignment and Substantive Pluralism.” Harvard International Law Journal 56(1): 1-79.
        Burke-White, William. 2014. “Crimea and the International Legal Order,” 56 Survival 65 (2014).
        Burke-White, William. 2011. “The Adoption of the Responsibility to Protect.” In The Responsibility to Protect the Promise of Stopping Mass Atrocities in our Time. edited by Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler. Oxford.
        Burke-White, William and Andreas von Staden. 2010. “Private Litigation in a Public Law Sphere: The Standard of Review in Investor State Arbitration.” 35 Yale International Law Journal 283.
        Burke-White, William. 2010. “Reframing Positive Complementarity: Reflections on the First Decade and Insights from the US Federal Criminal Justice System.” In The International Criminal Court and Complementarity: From Theory to Practice. Cambridge University Press.

        Emerging Scholar

        Caroline Cheong

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        Former Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Central Florida

        About

        Caroline Cheong is a former assistant professor in the History Department at the University of Central Florida. Her research focuses on the relationship between urban heritage conservation and economic development, values-based conservation management, conservation economics and poverty reduction. She earned her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in City and Regional Planning, her MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and her BS in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. She was a US/ICOMOS International Exchange Intern in Al Houson, Jordan and a Graduate Intern at the Getty Conservation Institute where she evaluated the challenges and opportunities facing historic cities.  Previously, Caroline was the Director of Research for Heritage Strategies International and PlaceEconomics through which she published numerous research reports and professional publications focusing on the economic impacts of historic preservation with Donovan Rypkema.

        Selected Publications

        Macdonald, Susan and Caroline Cheong. The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Conserving Heritage Buildings, Sites and Historic Urban Areas: A Literature Review. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2014

        Cheong, Caroline. Instruments for urban regeneration: Mixed-capital companies. (2014). Manuscript submitted for publication. Prepared for Eduardo Rojas.

        Cheong, Caroline. Creative Cities and Place. (2013). Manuscript submitted for publication. Prepared for Donovan Rypkema, Erasmus University and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands.

        Cheong, Caroline. Cruise Ship Tourism: Issues and Trends. Prepared for the World Monuments Fund for “Harboring Tourism: A Symposium on Cruise Ships in Historic Port Communities,” 2012.

        Fellow

        Joan Clos

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        Former Executive Director, United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat)

        Areas of Interest

          About

          Joan Clos served as Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) at the level of Undersecretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly from 2010 until 2018. Clos is a medical doctor with a distinguished career in public service and diplomacy. He was twice elected Mayor of Barcelona, serving two terms during the years 1997-2006. He was Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade of Spain between 2006 and 2008. Prior to joining the United Nations, he served as Spanish ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan. He has also been a member of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), Chairman of the UN Advisory Committee of Local Authorities (UNACLA), President for the World Association of Cities and Local Authorities, and President of Metropolis. He has received a number of awards, which include a gold medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1999 for transforming Barcelona and, in 2002 the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award for encouraging global cooperation between local authorities and the United Nations.

          Fellow

          Steve Cochrane

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          Chief APAC Economist, Moody’s Analytics

          Areas of Interest

            About

            Steven G. Cochrane, Chief APAC Economist for Moody’s Analytics, leads the firm’s Asia economic analysis, forecasting and research. Based in Singapore, Steve leads a team of economists involved in research and consulting projects focused on near-term economic risks to Asia-Pacific economies, including: the potential impact of tariffs; exposure to international capital flows and interest rate shifts; and rising debt loads of households, corporations, and governments. An analyst with Moody’s Analytics since 1993, Cochrane has been featured on Wall Street Radio, the PBS NewsHour, and CNBC.

            Selected Publications

            Cochrane, Steve and Sophia Koropeckyj, Aaron Smith, and Sean Ellis. 2013. Central Cities and Metropolitan Areas: Manufacturing and Nonmanufacturing Employment as Drivers of Growth. In Revitalizing American Cities, eds. Susan M. Wachter and Kimberly Zeuli, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

            Cochrane, Steve. 1997. Emerging Opportunities in Sonoma County: The Five Year Forecast. Sonoma County Economic Development Board.

            Cochrane, Steve. 2005. Economic Outlook: U.S. and North Dakota. North Dakota Governor’s Office.

            Fellow

            Chandan Deuskar

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            Urban Development Specialist, The World Bank

            About

            Chandan Deuskar is an Urban Development Specialist at The World Bank. His book Urban Planning in a World of Informal Politics was published by Penn Press in 2022.  Previously, he received his PhD in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. His dissertation, titled “Planning and the Politics of Informal Urbanization,” used quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the impact of informal local politics on urban planning and on spatial patterns of urban growth in developing democracies. At Penn he also co-developed and co-taught an undergraduate urban studies course on global urbanization for two semesters. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for five years as an urban development consultant at the World Bank, working in several countries across the East Asia and Pacific region and elsewhere. He holds a Master’s degree in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in architecture from Columbia University.

            Selected Publications

            Deuskar, C. (2019). Informal Urbanisation and Clientelism: Measuring the Global Relationship. Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019878334

            Deuskar, C. Urban Planning in a World of Informal Politics. Penn Press, 2022. https://www.pennpress.org/9781512823066/urban-planning-in-a-world-of-informal-politics/ 

            Deuskar, C. (2019). Clientelism and Planning in the Informal Settlements of Developing Democracies. Journal of Planning Literature, 34(4), 395–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412219842520  

            Roberts, M., Blankespoor, B., Deuskar, C., & Stewart, B. P. (2017). Urbanization and Development: Is Latin America and the Caribbean Different from the Rest of the World? (No. WPS8019; Policy Research Working Paper Series). World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/164251490903580662/Urbanization-and-development-is-Latin-America-and-the-Caribbean-different-from-the-rest-of-the-world

            World Bank (2015). East Asia’s Changing Urban Landscape: Measuring a Decade of Spatial Growthhttps://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/21159  

            Sanyal, B., & Deuskar, C. (2012). A Better Way to Grow?: Town Planning Schemes as a Hybrid Land Readjustment Process in Ahmedabad, India. In G. K. Ingram & Y.-H. Hong (Eds.), Value Capture and Land Policies: Value Capture and Land Policies (pp. 149–182). Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

            Penn IUR Scholar

            Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores

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            Associate Professor, Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies and Sociology, Rutgers University

            About

            Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores is Associate Professor of Sociology and Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University. She was previously the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow on Race, Crime, and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City. Dinzey-Flores has a number of research interests including urban and community sociology, urban planning, race and ethnicity, space and place, qualitative and quantitative methods, social policy, and Latin America and Caribbean Studies. Dinzey-Flores has published articles on public housing policy and design in Puerto Rico, race and class segregation and inequality in Puerto Rico, reggaetón music and culture as an urban phenomenon, and what it means to acknowledge Latinos in the urban intellectual history of the United States. Her recent book, Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) looks at questions of race and class inequality as they are recreated and contained in the physical built environment.

             

            Selected Publications

            Dinzey-Flores, Zaire Zenit. 2013. Locked In, Locked Out. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

             

            Fellow

            Derek Douglas

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            Vice President for Civic Engagement and External Affairs, University of Chicago

            Areas of Interest

              About

              Derek Douglas is Vice President for Civic Engagement and External Affairs at the University of Chicago. Douglas leads the University's local, national, and international urban development and civic engagement efforts. He also spearheads the University's efforts to work in partnership with the surrounding South Side neighborhoods, city, region, nation, and globe to advance urban economic development, enhance the quality of life for residents, and enrich the work of University faculty and students through research, education, and direct engagement. Previously, Douglas served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama on the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) where he served as the principal architect of President Obama’s agenda to strengthen our nation’s cities and metropolitan regions.

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