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Affiliated PhD Student

Jane Abell

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Doctoral Candidate in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

About

Jane Lief Abell is a thirdyear doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores Islam in the United States, with a particular focus on how race and religion inform relations among “native” and immigrant Muslim groups. Currently, she is working with Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, an Arabic language and arts organization based in West Philly, and conducting fieldwork in Northeast Philadelphia. Prior to entering graduate school, Jane held several research and editorial positions at the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard University; Harvard Divinity School; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society; the Consortium on Gender, Security, and Human Rights; and Law People Management, LLC. Jane holds a BA with High Honors in Sociology & Anthropology and Islamic Studies from Swarthmore College. 

Faculty Fellow

Francesca Ammon

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Associate Professor

About

Francesca Russello Ammon is an Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning and Historic Preservation at the School of Design. As a cultural historian of the built environment, her teaching, research, and writing focus on the changing shapes and spaces of the 20th- and 21st-century American city. She grounds her interdisciplinary approach to this subject on the premise that the landscape materializes social relations, cultural values, and economic processes. In particular, she is interested in the ways that visual culture informs planning and design, the dynamic relationships between cities and nature, and the politics of place and space. 

Before joining the School of Design faculty, Ammon was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also held the Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, jointly sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). While completing her Ph.D. in American Studies, she held long-term fellowships as a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities, Ambrose Monell Foundation Fellow in Technology and Democracy at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, and John E. Rovensky Fellow with the Business History Conference.

For the past year and a half, Ammon has been a Researcher on the Mellon Foundation-funded project on “Photography and/of Architecture” at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. She is also currently a colloquium member of the Penn/Mellon Foundation Humanities + Urbanism + Design Initiative, and she is a recent past fellow of Penn’s Price Lab for Digital Humanities. 

Ammon is on the board of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH).

Selected Publications

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2016. Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2015. “Post-Industrialization and the City of Consumption: Attempted Revitalization in Asbury Park, New Jersey.” Journal of Urban History 41(2): 158-174.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2012. “Unearthing Benny the Bulldozer: The Culture of Clearance in Postwar Children’s Books.” Technology and Culture 53(2): 306-336.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2009. “Commemoration Amid Criticism: The Mixed Legacy of Urban Renewal in Southwest Washington, D.C.” Journal of Planning History 8(3): 175-220.

Affiliated PhD Student

Rachel Bondra

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Fellow in the Initiative in the History of the Built Environment

Doctoral Student in City and Regional Planning

About

Rachel Bondra is a doctoral student in City and Regional Planning and the inaugural Fellow in the Initiative in the History of the Built Environment at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. As an historian of the built environment, she studies the social and cultural history of urban environments and planning in the nineteenth and twentieth century United States as they are reflected and embedded in the built environment, discards, and visual and material culture. Her research cultivates a process of reading waste as an avenue through which to understand urban and social transformation. Broadly, she is interested in how the urban landscape is a repository for historical narratives, how waste shapes the planning and management of the modern city, what the histories of landfills and waste facilities convey as a city changes over time, and how—and to what end—planning scholars and practitioners transform these sites for the future.

Her doctoral work is informed by her background in urban planning (Master of Urban Planning, CUNY Hunter College) and as an art and architectural historian (Bachelor of Arts, Ithaca College). Most recently Rachel was a Research Coordinator within the Office of Community Engagement and Inclusion at Barnard College in New York City where she conducted research with a community partner in the Bronx and supported college-wide infrastructure for engaged scholarship. She has also been a teaching assistant in the Urban Studies Department at Barnard and Columbia for courses including Shrinking Cities, Neighborhood and Community Development, and Crisis Management and Municipal Government. Rachel is interested in public history and digital humanities at the intersection of her work as both an historian and scholar of urban planning.

Affiliated PhD Student

Michael Brinley

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PhD Candidate, Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

About

Michael Brinley is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include sovie history, modern russian history, historic preservation, citizenship and urban studies. Prior to coming to Penn, he received his MA from the University of Washington and hi BA from Pepperdine University.

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. 

Emerging Scholar

Elizabeth Bynum

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Project Researcher, Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation

School/Department

Areas of Interest

    About

    Elizabeth Bynum is a Project Researcher at the Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. She received a PhD in Music and Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. As an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Elizabeth conducted fieldwork at the Gnaoua and World Music Festival in Essaouira, Morocco. Through that project, she asked how festival organizers reimagine Morocco’s relationship with other regions in Africa and connect Gnaoua music to its sub-Saharan roots. In graduate school, her research interests have focused on questions of musical preservation in Mexico. Her dissertation project builds on that interest by exploring the conceptual and practical links between environmental and music/cultural conservation in Mexico City. 

    Penn IUR Scholar

    Carolyn Chernoff

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    Graduate Faculty, Moore College of Art and Design

    About

    Carolyn Chernoff is a Graduate Faculty at Moore College of Art and Design. She is an urban and cultural sociologist specializing in the role of culture in reproducing and transforming urban inequality. While a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, Chernoff received the 2013 Arnold Award for Outstanding Contribution by a Doctoral Student from the Graduate School of Education, the Dean’s Scholarship (GSE), and served as a 2012-2013 Graduate Fellow for Teaching Excellence at Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Chernoff’s work focuses on cities, arts, and social change, particularly on the level of social interaction and the production of community. Her dissertation, “Imagining the City: Ritual and Conflict in the Urban Art Democracy,” is based on ethnographic research conducted over a period of eight years at three different community-arts organizations in a major Mid-Atlantic city. 

    Selected Publications

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2015. “Black Faces, White Voices/White Faces, Black Voices: The implications of “race fail” for community-based arts education.” Visual Arts Research, 41(1): 96-110.

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2014. “Of Women and Queens: Gender Realities and Re-Education in RuPaul’s Drag Empire.” In Jim Deams, ed., RuPaul’s Drag Race: Drag and Reality TV. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2013. “Spelling It Out: Difference and Diversity in Public Conversation.” Michigan Sociological Review, 27.

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2013. “Conflict Theory in Education.” In Sociology of Education, James Ainsworth and Geoffrey J. Golson, eds. Sage Publications.

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2013. “Waldorf Education.” In Sociology of Education, James Ainsworth and Geoffrey J. Golson, eds. Sage Publications.

    Chernoff, Carolyn. 2010. Objectifying Measures: The Dominance of High-Stakes Testing and the Politics of Schooling – By Amanda Walker Johnson. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 41: 212–213.

    Chernoff, Carolyn.  2009. On Culture, Art, and Experience. Perspectives on Urban Education (Penn GSE electronic journal), 6(2): 77-78.

    Penn IUR Scholar

    Meagan Ehlenz

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    Associate Professor, School of Geography and Urban Planning, Arizona State University

    About

    Meagan Ehlenz is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University’s School of Geography and Urban Planning. Her major fields of study include urban revitalization and community development, with specializations in the role of anchor institutions in urban places and mechanisms for building community wealth. Prior to joining ASU’s faculty, Ehlenz was a Research Associate at the Penn Institute for Urban Research. In this capacity, she developed a set of case studies for Penn IUR’s Anchor Institution Roundtable (PRAI), The Power of Eds & Meds: Urban Universities Investing in Neighborhood Revitalization and Innovation. She was also a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy C. Lowell Harriss dissertation fellow. Previously, Ehlenz worked as a planning consultant in Southeastern Wisconsin and as a senior planner for the City of Milwaukee’s Department of City Development. She holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania, a Master in Urban Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Bachelor in Environmental Design from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

    Selected Publications

    Ehlenz, Meagan M. “Neighborhood Revitalization and the Anchor Institution: Assessing the Impact of the University of Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia Initiatives on University City.” Urban Affairs Review (forthcoming).

    Ehlenz, Meagan M. and Eugénie L. Birch with Brian Agness.  The Power of Eds and Meds: Urban Universities Investing in Neighborhood Revitalization & Innovation. Philadelphia: Penn Institute for Urban Research, 2014.

    Ehlenz, Meagan M. “Managing the Land Access Paradox in the Urbanising World.” Critical Housing Analysis 1, no. 1 (2014). 

    Ehlenz, Meagan M. Community Land Trusts and Limited Equity Cooperatives: A Marriage of Affordable Homeownership Models? Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2014.

    Ehlenz, Meagan M. Review of New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy by Edward G. Goetz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013). Journal of Urban Affairs 36, no. 3 (2014): 540-541.

    Penn IUR Scholar

    Richard Florida

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    University Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

    Global Research Professor, New York University

    Areas of Interest

      About

      Richard Florida is a University Professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and a Global Research Professor at New York University. He previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University and George Mason University.  Florida is one of the world’s leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation. He is also Senior Editor at The Atlantic, where he co-founded and serves as Editor-at-Large for The Atlantic Cities, as well as the Creative Class Group. He is the author of several best-selling books including his award-winning book The Rise of the Creative Class.

      Selected Publications

      Florida, Richard. 2017. The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It. New York: Basic Books. 

      Florida, Richard. 2010. The Great Reset: How the Post-Crash Economy Will Change the Way We Live and Work. New York: HarperCollins.

      Florida, Richard. 2009. Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. New York: Basic Books.

      Florida, Richard. 2005. The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent. New York: HarperCollins.

      Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books.

      Faculty Fellow

      Vivian Gadsden

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      William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education

      Co-Faculty Director, Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center

      Director, National Center on Fathers and Families

      Associate Director, National Center on Adult Literacy

      About

      Vivian Gadsden is the William T. Carter Professor of Child Development and Education. Her research interests focus on cultural and social factors affecting learning and literacy across the life-course and within families, particularly those at the greatest risk for academic and social vulnerability and her writing focuses on intergenerational learning. Her current projects include a longitudinal study on intergenerational learning within African-American and Latino families; a study of parent engagement in children’s early literacy; a study with young fathers in urban settings; a study on literacy, education, and health; a policy study on incarcerated parents and their families; and a study of children of incarcerated parents. She is participating in an NICHD-funded project (Dr. John Fantuzzo, principal investigator) on the development of an integrated Head Start curriculum.

      Selected Publications

      Gadsden, Vivian L., and Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román. 2017. “’Urban’ Schooling and ‘Urban’ Families: The Role of Context and Place.” Urban Education 52(4).

      Breiner, Heather, Morgan Ford, and Vivian L. Gadsden. 2016. Parenting Matters : Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Supporting the Parents of Young Children.

      Southerland, Sherry A., Vivian L. Gadsden, Carolyn D. Herrington. 2014. “Editors’ Introduction: What Should Count as Quality Education Research?” Educational Researcher 43(1).

      Fantuzzo, John W. , Vivian L. Gadsden, and Paul A. McDermott. 2011. “An Integrated Curriculum to Improve Mathematics, Language, and Literacy for Head Start Children.” American Educational Research Journal 48(3).

      Faculty Fellow

      David Grazian

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      Associate Professor of Sociology and Communication

      About

      David Grazian is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Grazian received his B.A. from Rutgers University in 1994, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2000. He teaches courses on popular culture, mass media and the arts; cities and urban sociology; classical sociological theory; and ethnographic methods. In his research he employs a variety of ethnographic and other qualitative methods to study the production and consumption of commercial entertainment in the urban milieu. He is the author of four books: Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs (Univ. Chicago Press, 2003), On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife (Univ. Chicago Press, 2008), Mix It Up: Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Society (W.W. Norton, 2010; 2017), and American Zoo: A Sociological Safari (Princeton Univ. Press, 2015).

      Selected Publications

      Grazian, David. 2017. Mix it Up: Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Society, 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton.

      Grazian, David. 2016. American Zoo: A Sociological Safari. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

      Garner, Betsie and David Grazian. 2016. “Naturalizing Gender through Childhood Socialization Messages in a Zoo.” Social Psychology Quarterly 79(3): 181-198.

      Grazian, David. 2011. On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

      Grazian, David. 2005. Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

      Faculty Fellow

      David Young Kim

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      Associate Professor of History of Art

      About

      David Young Kim is Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art in the School of Arts and Sciences. He teaches and researches Southern Renaissance art, with a focus on art literature, transcultural exchange, and material culture. He received his B.A. in English and French literature from Amherst College (1999) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard (2009), in addition to attending the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7. Before joining the Penn faculty in 2013, he was a postdoctoral faculty fellow (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the University of Zurich in Switzerland (2009-2013) and a visiting faculty member at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo in Brazil (2011-2013). In May 2017, he delivered the Tomàs Harris Lectures at the University College London. He received the 2017 Dean’s Award for Innovation in Teaching for his contributions to undergraduate education.

      Selected Publications

      Kim, David. 2014. The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press.

      Kim, David Y, ed. 2013. Matters of Weight: Force, Gravity, and Aesthetics in the Early Modern Period. Berlin: Edition Imorde.

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