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.

View by:
, ,
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
clear
Affiliated PhD Student

Samuel Ostroff

x

Joint Doctoral Candidate in History and South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania

About

Samuel Ostroff is a joint Doctoral Candidate in History and South Asia Studies at Penn. He is currently writing his dissertation on the economic, environmental and imperial aspects of the Indian Ocean pearl trade in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the field of urban studies, his work focuses on port-cities and urban networking across oceanic and global spaces in the early modern world. Aside from his dissertation research, Samuel is interested in urban planning, transportation, and policy in the global cities of the 21st century. Prior to Penn, Samuel completed his B.A. in History at Bucknell University and M.A. in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University.

 

Penn IUR Scholar

Suzana Pasternak

x

Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo

About

Suzana Pasternak is Professor of Architecture and Urbanization at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Sao Paulo, where she teaches courses on urbanization, demography, and housing. Her work focuses on housing services in developing urban areas and includes research on the development of and life in Sao Paulo’s squatter settlements. 

Selected Publications

Pasternak, Suzana. 2012. Mudanças na Estrutura Sócio-ocupacional das Metrópoles Brasileiras. Cadernos Metrópole (PUC-SP), 14: 233-278.

Pasternak, Suzana and Lucia Maria Machado Bógus. 2011. A Dinâmica Espacial da Desigualdade na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo. Estudos sobre Urbanização, Arquitetura e Preservação, 47: 1-88.

Pasternak, Suzana and Lucia Maria Machado Bógus Bógus. 2011. Urbanização, Meio Ambiente e Saúde em São Paulo. InterfacEHS (Ed. Português), 6: 51-72.

Pasternak, Suzana. 2011. O Estado de São Paulo no Censo 2010. Nyssa, 199: 24.

Pasternak, Suzana. 2010. Loteamentos Irregulares No Município de São Paulo: Uma Avaliação Espacial Urbanística. Planejamento e Politicas Publicas, 1: 131-170.

Fellow

Sheela Patel

x

Founder Director, Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC)

About

Sheela Patel is Founder Director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), a Mumbai-based NGO that has been working on housing and infrastructure rights for the urban poor for since 1984. She also played a key role in the expansion of Mahila Milan, a federation of collectives of women living in slums across India. Patel is also the Chair of Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI), an international network of poor people’s organizations and supporting NGOs, active in Asia and Africa. She has represented Sdi as member or advisor in many national and international task forces and committees.  Patel has received the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award from the Synergos Institute in recognition of her extensive efforts to ameliorate urban poverty, and Padmashree a national award from the Indian government for her work on urban poverty issues.

Selected Publications

Patel, Sheela. 2013. Upgrade, Rehouse or Resettle? An Assessment of the Indian Government’s Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) Programme. Environment & Urbanization, 25(1): 177-188.

Patel, Sheela, Carrie Baptist, Celine D’Cruz. 2012. Knowledge is power – Informal Communities Assert Their Right to the City through SDI and Community-led Enumerations. Environment & Urbanization, 24(1).

Patel, Sheela. 2011. “Are Women Victims, or Are They Warriors?” In Women’s Health and the World’s Cities, chapter 6, Afaf Ibrahim, Meleis, Eugénie L. Birch, Susan M. Wachter, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Patel, Sheela and Diana Mitlin. 2010. Gender Issues and Slum/Shack Dweller Federations (report). International Institute for Environment and Development.

Patel, Sheela, Shaaban Sheuya, Philippa Howden-Chapman. 2007.  The Design of Housing and Shelter Programs: The Social and Environmental Determinants of Inequalities. Journal of Urban Health, 84(1): 98-108.

Fellow

Enrique Peñalosa

x

President and Board of Directors, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP)

About

Enrique Peñalosa is the President and Board of Directors at Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). He was Mayor of Bogota, the Colombian capital with eight million inhabitants, for the four-year period from 2016-2019. He previously held this office from 1998-2001, during which time he led the transformation of the city into a model of sustainability, mobility, quality of life and equality. He is known for having created a network of bicycle paths, projects for the upgrading of slums, a land bank to provide quality housing in low-income neighborhoods, parks and pedestrianized areas in the poorest sectors of the city, daily restriction on car use during peak hours, public parks and libraries, public schools of high architectural quality, and the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit network. Beyond his own city, Peñalosa has lectured at numerous forums and universities on environmental issues, urban planning and urban policy, and has advised governments in Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America and the United States.

Selected Publications

Penalosa, Enrique. 1990. Democracy and Capitalism: Challenges of the Coming Century. Fundación hacia el Desarrollo.

Penalosa, Enrique. 1989. Capitalism: The Best Option. Fundación hacia el Desarrollo.

Emerging Scholar

Megan Reed

x

Assistant Professor, Sociology and Quantitative Theory and Methods (QTM), Emory University

About

Megan N. Reed is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Quantitative Theory and Methods (QTM) at Emory University. She received her PhD in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on urbanization and mobility in India. She is working with the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at Penn on a survey project addressing the topics of residential mobility, access to public services, and social attitudes in the Delhi National Capital Region. Prior to joining the Department of Sociology, Megan was a 2012 Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellow in India and also worked as the Research Coordinator at CASI.

Fellow

Aromar Revi

x

Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)

Areas of Interest

    About

    Aromar Revi is Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) India’s prospective independent national University for Research & Innovation addressing its challenges of urbanisation, through an integrated programme of education, research, practice and training. He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management Schools of the University of Delhi. He is also a Fellow of the India-China Institute at the New School University, New York.

     

    Emerging Scholar

    Ariadna Reyes-Sánchez

    x

    Assistant Professor, Public Affairs and Planning, The University of Texas at Arlington

    School/Department

    Areas of Interest

      About

      Originally from Mexico City, Ariadna serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Affairs and Planning at The University of Texas at Arlington; before this, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Global Shifts Program at the Perry World House. Ariadna holds a Ph.D. in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin where she was the recipient of the Fulbright fellowship. Ariadna’s research contributes to debates on informal housing and transportation, climate justice, and sustainability in the Global South. Her fieldwork in Mexico City’s informal settlements revealed that families enact low-energy practices, such as using public transportation and walking. In so doing, Ariadna’s work revealed the contribution of informal settlements to climate change mitigation and sustainability in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. Also, she conducted participatory action research on solid waste management for the informal community of Los Platanitos, in Santo Domingo. From 2009 to 2013, she served as a specialist in sustainable housing at the Centro Mario Molina, where she led a study to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the Mexican social housing policy. Civil engineer and M.Sc. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the National Polytechnic of Mexico (IPN) where she graduated with honors.

      Selected Publications

      Reyes, A. (2020). Housing and Transportation: The Relationship between Residential Location, Local Retail Economies, and Commutes of Low-Income Families in Mexico City. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 0739456X20932983. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X20932983

      Reyes, A. , Reyes, A. and Daigle, C. (2020) Looking Back to Look Forward: Evolution of the Habitat Agenda and Prospects for Implementation of the New Urban Agenda. Current Urban Studies8, 337-363. doi: 10.4236/cus.2020.82019

      Sletto B, Reyes, A.I., Staines, L., Vasudevan, R. (2019). Community-based Planning and Critical Pedagogy in Santo Domingo Norte, Dominican Republic. PLATFORM: Complexity | Scale | Power, UT School of Architecture.

      Sletto, B., Lamina, A.M., Oliver, D., Purdue, B., Reyes, A.I., Zepeda, J. (2016). Entrelazando Miradas: Hacia una Nueva Visión de la Infraestructura Socio-comunitaria. Reimagining Community Infrastructures. UT School of Architecture, Austin, Texas. (Co-editor.)

      Reyes, A. I. (2015). Beyond Just Light Bulbs: The Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Housing Sector in Mexico City.  Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technologies. Dearborn, Michigan

      Penn IUR Scholar

      Bish Sanyal

      x

      Ford International Professor of International Development and Planning Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies / Humphrey Fellows Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

      About

      Bish Sanyal is a Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)/ Humphrey Fellows Program at MIT. Professor Sanyal joined MIT in 1984, served as the Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1994 to 2002 and was the Chair of the Faculty at MIT from 2007 to 2009. Professor Sanyal’s research, publication and leadership experience reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of the field of Urban Planning. With degrees in Architecture and City Planning, and a strong interest in the interconnection between the developing world and the United States, Sanyal has long held an interest in international planning education. He is currently heading an effort to create the first private university of urban and regional planning in India and developing of two edited volumes—Hidden Successes and A History of Planning Ideas.

      Penn IUR Scholar

      Saskia Sassen

      x

      Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, London School of Economics

      About

      Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair, The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University and a Professor at the London School of Economics. She has authored many books, the most recent of which is Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press 2014). Her books are translated into over 20 languages. She has received diverse awards, and was chosen as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy-2011, Top 100 Thought Leaders by GDI-MIT 2012 and 2013, and received the 2013 Principe de Asturias Prize for the Social Sciences.

      Selected Publications

      Sassen, Saskia. 2014. Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

      Sassen, Saskia. 2012. Cities in a World Economy.(4TH updated edition) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

      Sassen, Saskia. 2008. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

      Sassen, Saskia.2007. A Sociology of Globalization. New York: W.W.Norton.

      Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (2001 2nd fully updated edition).

      Emerging Scholar

      Moritz Schularick

      x

      Professor of Economics and Economic History, University of Bonn

      Areas of Interest

        About

        Moritz Schularick is Professor of Economics and Economic History at the University of Bonn and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London and the CESifo Research Network. In 2015/16, he held the Alfred-Grosser-Chair at SciencesPo in Paris. Previously, Schularick taught at the Free University of Berlin and was a visiting professor at New York University and the University of Cambridge. Working at the intersection of macroeconomics, international economics and economic history, his research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of International Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic History, and several other journals. My research is currently supported by grants from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, VolkswagenStiftung, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

        Faculty Fellow

        Heather Sharkey

        x

        Professor

        About

        Heather J. Sharkey is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in the School of Arts and Sciences. She received her Ph.D. in History from Princeton University after conducting research abroad on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship. Before joining the Penn faculty in 2002, she taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Trinity College in Connecticut. In 2011 she won the Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award from the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania. During the 2012-13 year, she was a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.

        Selected Publications

        Sharkey, Heather. 2017. A History of Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Cambridge University Press.

        Sharkey, Heather. 2013. Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missions in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Syracuse University Press.

        Sharkey, Heather and Mehmet Ali Doğan, eds. 2011. American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters. University of Utah Press.  

        Sharkey, Heather. 2008. American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire. Princeton University Press.

        Sharkey, Heather. 2003. Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. University of California Press. 

        Affiliated PhD Student

        Sudev Sheth

        x

        PhD Candidate in South Asia Studies and History, University of Pennsylvania

        About

        Sudev J Sheth is a doctoral student in the Departments of South Asia Studies and History at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation titled A historical ethnography of statecraft and governance in Baroda, c. 1700−1949 investigates connections between agrarian economies, finance capital, and provincial state building in western India during the dissolution of the Mughal Empire and the rise of British colonial rule. Sudev also researches historical transformations in boundary and land use in the urban villages of contemporary New Delhi.

         

        Bring our latest initiatives, publications and events to your inbox.