Urban Doctoral Symposium Celebrates Emerging Urban Research and Local Urban Leader

University of Pennsylvania doctoral students with urban-focused dissertations gathered to celebrate their achievements at the Urban Doctoral Symposium and Poster session hosted on May 17 by Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) and the Penn Urban Studies Program.

Dr. Bruce Zou (Graduate School of Education) offered the keynote, presenting ideas from his dissertation examining how international manufacturing companies adjusted localization strategies following COVID-19 to balance economic efficiency with social and environmental concerns. Hyper-localization is the next phase of globalization, he posited, emphasizing the critical role of workforce development and economic revitalization and the impact of these trends on urban development and city planning strategies.

Penn IUR Co-Director Dr. Eugénie Birch also honored longtime friend and collaborator Dr. Elaine Simon, Co-Director of the Urban Studies Program, presenting her with an Urban Leadership Award.

“Every year Penn IUR honors urban leaders around the world, and today we want to honor an urban leader we have right here in our midst,” Birch said. “Elaine Simon has grown Urban Studies into a truly interdisciplinary program that prepares urban scholars and practitioners to take on climate change, homelessness, failing infrastructure, and other pressing challenges of our time.”

Simon also collaborated with Penn IUR to develop the doctoral symposium as a way of documenting and sharing new ideas in urban research across campus and beyond, encouraging cooperation and collaboration on urban issues between many disciplines.

A poster session documenting current work from continuing urban doctoral students followed, featuring brief presentations on current research topics ranging from automated buses to groundwater salinization:

• Tiffany M. Tran, City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - “Changing Water into Land: Estimates of Informal Land Reclamation from a Pilot Study of Cirebon City, Indonesia”;
• Kirstin Fisk Engelman, City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - “How Can Planners Become Involved in Planning for Blue Carbon?”;
• Rachel Bondra, Fellow in the Initiative in the History of the Built Environment, Weitzman School of Design - “A Human Dumping Ground”: Waste and the Making of Rikers Island, 1884-1939;
• Ziyi Tang, City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - "Exploring the Impact of Automated Buses on Travel Mode Choice Dynamics";
• Jasmine Siyu Wu, City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - "Barriers to Obtaining a Young Driver License: Financial & Physical Access Matter";
• Rance Graham-Bailey, City & Regional Planning. City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - “Moving Towards the Market: The Rental Assistance Demonstration and Transforming Public Housing”;
• Hui Tian, City & Regional Planning. City & Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design - "Predicting Salinization of Groundwater Under Sea Level Rise Scenarios with Machine Learning Models"; and 
• Sherrie Cheng, Economics, College of Arts and Sciences – “Urban Highway Removal: Evidence from Rochester’s Inner Loop.”

For the first time, this year, members of the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium also shared their work, including:

• Mikun Fasan, Biochemistry and Urban Studies, College of Arts & Sciences, and Simon Webber, Urban Studies, College of Arts & Sciences - "Spatial Analysis of Residential Zoning Classifications and their Colocation with Microclimate Externalities"
  Research Mentor: Chris Quattro, Assistant Professor, Geography and Planning Department, Appalachia State University
• Marielle Kang, Environmental Studies, College of Arts & Sciences - "Analyzing Stakeholder Engagement in Cebu, Philippines during Typhoon Odette"
  Research Mentor:Simon Richter, Class of 1965 Endowed Term Professor of German, Germanic Languages and Literatures
• Vivian Li, Business Analytics and Marketing, Wharton - "Localizing International Manufacturing Companies in the U.S. - Examining Successful Labor Practices"
  Research Mentor: Bruce Zou, Organizational Learning & Leadership, Graduate School of Education
• Khalid Mohieldin, Urban Studies, College of Arts & Sciences - "Assessing the Spatial Dimensions and Consequences of Suburban Poverty 
  in the US"
  Research Mentor: Heidi Artigue, PhD Student, Applied Economics, Wharton
• Natalie Vasquez, Political Science and Urban Studies, College of Arts and Sciences - "Safety Perceptions Among Womxn from Socially Marginalized Communities in Philadelphia: Preliminary Findings"
  Research Mentor: Stephanie Rivera-Kumar, Phd Student, City and Regional Planning

To learn more about Penn IUR programs for academic instruction, including the Undergraduate Urban Research Colloquium (UURC) and the Penn Urban Doctoral Symposium, visit https://penniur.upenn.edu/instruction.