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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Emerging Scholar

Albert T. Han

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Assistant Professor, Urban Planning, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

About

Albert Tonghoon Han is currently an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Environmental Design. His research focuses on studying how growth management, land use planning, and environmental policies affect the natural environment in metropolitan areas in the North America and other fast-growing cities around the world. He is also interested in studying how planning efforts based on market-based approaches can mitigate the impacts of climate change, particularly in regards to improving building energy efficiency in cities. Albert received his Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from University of Pennsylvania in 2015. Prior to Penn, he worked on various global environmental projects at the Korea Environment Institute from 2011 to 2012. He obtained his master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Iowa in 2011 with specialization in environmental planning and spatial analysis. His devotion to studying land use and environmental planning originated from his background in Life Science and Biotechnology from Korea University where he received his bachelor’s degree in 2009.

Affiliated PhD Student

Sa Min Han

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Doctoral Student, City and Regional Planning, University of Pennslyvania

About

Sa Min Han is a doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. She has a BA degree in Landscape Architecture from the Seoul National University and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to her arrival, she worked as a certificated landscape architect and urban planner at Samsung C&T in Korea for 8 years. She also interned at AECOM in Hong Kong. Ms. Han’s research interest lies in resilient and sustainable planning. She eagerly hopes to study mapping process related to vulnerability indexes and regional assessment, for use when engaging in site prioritization and preparations for natural hazards caused by climate change. Her goal is to support policymakers, planners, and urban designers hoping to better understand how coastal cities should respond to natural hazards caused by climate change and to help them to establish appropriate policies for mitigation and adaptation.

 

Selected Publications

Korea Water Resources Corporation. “Application and Management Plans for the Flood Control Plains in Korea” (2007)

PennDesign Urban Planning Studio. “Alternative Futures for the New Jersey Shore: Climate Change Adaptation & Natural Hazard Mitigation Strategies”, IFLA World Congress (2014)

11st ULI / Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, honorable mention (2013)

 

Faculty Fellow

Amy Hillier

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Associate Professor, School of Social Policy & Practice

About

Amy Hillier (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice. She currently teaches introductory-level GIS (mapping) courses for SP2 and Urban Studies program and chairs the MSW racism course sequence. Her doctoral and post-doctoral research focused on historical mortgage redlining. For more than a decade, her research focused on links between the built environment and public health. During that time, her primary faculty position was with the Department of City & Regional Planning in the Weitzman School of Design. She moved to SP2 in 2017 in order to pursue new research interests relating to LGBTQ communities, particularly trans youth. She is the founding director of the LGBTQ Certificate.

Dr. Hillier received a BA in History from Middlebury College and her MSW and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Born and raised in a small town in seacoast New Hampshire, she now loves city living and lives with her family in West Philadelphia. When she is not teaching or doing research, you can find her cooking and playing sports with her children or making buttons and other crafts.

Selected Publications

Hillier, A, Smith, TE, Whiteman, ED, Chrisinger, B. 2017. “Discrete choice model of food store trips using National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS).” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14(10): 1133.

Hillier, Amy and Benjamin Chrisinger. 2017. “The Reality of Urban Food Deserts and What Low-Income Food Shoppers Need.” In Social Policy and Social Justice, edited by John L Jackson, Jr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lapham, Sandra C, Deborah A Cohen, Bing Han, Stephanie Williamson, Kelly R Evenson, Thomas L McKenzie, Amy Hillier, and Phillip Ward. 2016. “How important is perception of safety to park use? A four-city survey.” Urban Studies 53(12).

Cannuscio, CC, A Hillier, A Karpyn, and K Glanz. 2014. “The social dynamics of healthy food shopping and store choice in an urban environment.” Social Science and Medicine 122.

Mayer, Victoria L, Amy Hillier, Marcus A Bachhuber, Judith A Long. 2014. “Food Insecurity, Neighborhood Food Access, and Food Assistance in Philadelphia.” Journal of Urban Health 91(6).

Penn IUR Scholar

Tingting Hong

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Associate Professor, College of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University.

About

Tingting Hong is an associate professor in College of Architecture and Urban-Rural Planning, Fuzhou University. She is a visiting scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research from 2022 to 2023, conducting research on resilient cities. She recieved a PhD degree in 2013 and is now a tutor for master students in urban and rural planning, and design and landscape design. She was awarded as one of the 21st century excellent talents of Colleges and Universities in Fujian province. In the past years, she has led many projects, including National Natural Science Foundation of China—“Research on Passive Disaster Prevention Greenbelt Planning in Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong Based on Quantitative Technology”, one National Key Technology Support Program, five provincial-level projects and over 30 urban planning and landscape design projects. Besides, she has also edited two provincial-level local standard, published over 30 scientific papers both in national and international journals, and guided undergraduates to participate in competitions and publications of more than 20 papers. In the past 15 years, she has been mainly engaged in the research of urban disaster prevention and mitigation and emergency evacuation, and the function of urban passive disaster prevention and the optimization design of urban wind environment. 

Faculty Fellow

Mark Alan Hughes

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Professor of Practice

Founding Faculty Director and current Co-Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy

About

Mark Alan Hughes is Professor of Practice in the School of Design and founding Faculty Director of Penn’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also the founding Faculty Director of the Fels Policy Research Initiative in the School of Arts and Sciences, a Senior Fellow of the Wharton School’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Penn’s Fox Leadership Program. Hughes has published in the leading journals of economic geography, urban economics, political science, policy analysis, and won the National Planning Award for his research in city and regional planning. He was Chief Policy Adviser to Mayor Michael Nutter and the founding Director of Sustainability for the City of Philadelphia, where he led the creation of the city’s Greenworks Plan. He has designed and fielded national policy research projects in a variety of areas including the Bridges to Work program in transportation, the Transitional Work Corporation in job training and placement, the Campaign for Working Families in EITC participation, and the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub in regional economic development. 

Selected Publications

Hughes, Mark Alan, Cornelia Colijn, and Oscar Serpell. 2017. “Comparative Pathways to Regional Energy Transition.” Kleinman Policy Digest available at http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/pathways.

Hughes, Mark Alan, Cornelia Colijn, and Oscar Serpell. 2017. “Managing Risk in the Energyshed.” LA+ Journal 6(Fall).

Hughes, Mark Ala. 2017. “No Acceptable Alternative to Paris.” The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15. http://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/blog/2017/06/12/there-no-acceptable-alternative-paris.

Emerging Scholar

Qianyun Ji

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Ph.D Candidate, Urban Planning and Design, Tsinghua University of China

About

Qianyun Ji is a Ph.D Candidate in urban planning and design at Tsinghua University of China. She received her M.E. in Urban Planning from Southeast University of China in 2020 and her B.E. in Urban Planning from Southeast University of China in 2015. Her research is focused on planning and design for improving the wellbeing of vulnerable groups and the sustainable development of child-friendly environments and communities. Qianyun Ji was a visiting scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research from 2022 to 2023. 

Affiliated PhD Student

Maryam Khojasteh

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PhD Candidate, City and Regional Planning, School of Design, University of Pennslyvania

About

Maryam is a PhD student in the City and Regional Planning program at PennDesign. She is interested in community-based research that explores the intersection of public health, community food system and community economic development. She received her master degree in Urban Planning from SUNY at Buffalo. Prior to coming to Penn, she worked as a research associate at the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab in Buffalo NY. She worked toward building the capacity of non-profit organizations and local governments to strengthen community food systems as well as coordinating on the ground health interventions to promote active living among school-aged children. Her current project explores the ways that immigrant food entrepreneurs impact the health and well-being of immigrants and receiving communities. 

 

Selected Publications

Khojasteh, Maryam, and Samina Raja. 2016. “Agents of Change: Role of Immigrants in Creating Healthier Food Environments.” Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. 1-29

Baek, So-Ra, Samina Raja, Nathan Attard, and Maryam Khojasteh. 2016. “Acculturating into (In)active Commuting to School: Differences among Children of Foreign-born and US-born parents.” Children, Youth, and Environment 26 (1):37-55

 

Affiliated PhD Student

Chaeri Kim

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Doctoral Student, City and Regional Planning

About

Chaeri Kim is a doctoral student in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on sustainable design. Prior to coming to the University of Pennslyvania, she worked at an architectural design firm and as a real estate investment analyst. She received her Master of Science in Real Estate from New York University and her B.A. in English Literature, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

Penn IUR Scholar

Kirsten Kinzer

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Associate Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs, UNC Wilmington

About

Kirsten Kinzer is an Associate Professor in the UNC Wilmington Department of Public and International Affairs. At UNCW she leads the urban planning concentration in the Master of Public Administration program. Kinzer’s research explores the role of public participation in planning implementation. Her current research project focuses on public engagement before and after the adoption of sustainability plans in American cities. Kinzer received her PhD in City and Regional Planning from PennDesign. She holds a Master in City Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University. Kinzer previously worked as a city planner in Salem, Massachusetts, as an urban planning consultant in Portland, Oregon, and with several non-governmental organizations.

Selected Publications

Missed connections: a critical analysis of interconnections between public participation and plan implementation literature. (2016). Journal of Planning Literature. Published online before print.

Fellow

Elizabeth Kneebone

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Research Director, Terner Center for Housing Innovation

About

Elizabeth Kneebone is the Research Director at Terner Center for Housing Innovation and co-author of Confronting Suburban Poverty in America (Brookings Press, 2013). Her work primarily focuses on urban and suburban poverty, metropolitan demographics, and tax policies that support low-income workers and communities. In Confronting Suburban Poverty In America she and co-author Alan Berube address the changing geography of metropolitan poverty and offer pragmatic solutions for reforming and modernizing the nation’s policy and practice framework for alleviating poverty and increasing access to opportunity.

Selected Publications

Kneebone, Elizabeth and Alan Berube. 2013. Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. Washington: DC: Brookings Institution Press.
 
Kneebone, Elizabeth and Carey Nadeau. 2013. “The Resurgence of Concentrated Poverty in America: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s.” In The New American 
Suburbs: Poverty, Race, and the Mortgage Crisis, edited by Katrin Anacker. Ashgate.
Carey Nadeau).
 
Kneebone, Elizabeth and Steven Raphael. 2011. “City and Suburban Crime Trends in Metropolitan America.” Brookings Institution.
Faculty Fellow

John Landis

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Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning

About

John Landis is Professor Emeritus of City and Regional Planning in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as the Department Chair of City and Regional Planning 2009 to 2017. Prior to arriving at Penn in 2007, he was on the planning faculties of the University of California-Berkeley (1987–2007), Georgia Tech (1985–1986), and the University of Rhode Island (1983–1984). Professor Landis serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Housing Policy Debate. His research interests span a variety of urban development topics; his recent research and publications focus on gentrification and neighborhood change, affordable housing, sprawl and growth management, metropolitan economic resilience, and smart cities technologies. Professor Landis currently serves as Penn’s team leader on the joint University of Texas/University of Pennsylvania Transportation Center on Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions.

Selected Publications

Landis, John, Erick Guerra, and David Hsu. 2017. “Intersecting residential and transportation CO2 emissions: Metropolitan climate change programs in the Age of Trump.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 1-21.

Landis, John. 2017. “The end of sprawl? Not so fast.” Housing Policy Debate 27(5): 659-697. 

Landis, John. 2016. “Tracking and explaining neighborhood socioeconomic change in U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2010.” Housing Policy Debate 26(1): 2-52.

Faculty Fellow

Allison Lassiter

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Assistant Professor

About

Dr. Allison Lassiter examines opportunities to use landscape infrastructure and emerging technologies to build resilience and increase adaptive capacity in cities. Her research focuses on urban water management. She is working on evidence-based green infrastructure policy; adapting municipal water to rising seas; and smart water. She teaches courses on sustainable cities, smart cities, and water policy. She received a BS in Computational Biology from Cornell, Masters in City Planning from MIT, and PhD in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn, she was a research fellow in Economics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, working with the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities.

Selected Publications

Sustainable Water: Challenges and Solutions from California. Editor. University of California Press. 2015.

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