Doctoral / Current Student Research and Awards
Current Students
Andrews, Leon
ltandrew@umich.edu
Advisors: Barry Checkoway and Elsie Harper-Anderson
Dissertation: "Evaluating a Youth Development Policy Framework in Planning for Our States: An In-depth Case Study of New Mexico"
Coseo, Paul
pcoseo@umich.edu
Advisors: Larissa Larsen, Richard Norton
Areas of interest: My research interest is in the various ways in which urban design patterns impact city environments in the Great Lakes region, including the interrelationship between urban design, ecology, and urban climatic conditions.
Epstein, David
davideps@umich.edu
Advisors: Jonathan Levine & Robert Fishman
Areas of interest: land use, social movements, survey methodology, spatial analysis
My work examines how third sector organizations affect land use decisions, especially in the context of racial/ethnic tensions. I hope to identify potential solutions to a planning conflict in northern Israel between farmers & environmentalists, Arabs & Jews, and government agencies & civil society groups.
Conference paper: Margaret Dewar and David Epstein, "Planning for ’Megaregions’ in the United States: Findings from Planning for the Great Lakes Megaregion", World Planning Schools Congress, Mexico City, 11-16 July 2006.
Greenstein, Shana
shagreen@umich.edu
Advisors: Gavin Shatkin, Robert Fishman
Areas of interest: My research focuses on historical and cross-cultural uses of public space for "private sphere" work, specifically with an eye towards resource-sharing and water use (examples include public laundries, baths, communal spigots, etc) to inform planning as we move into a time of threatened global scarcity and of increased privatization of water resources.
Kaylor, Charles
ckaylor@umich.edu
Dissertation Committee: Jonathan Levine (Chair), Steven J. Jackson (cognate), Scott Campbell, Daniel G. Brown, Malcolm McCullough (members)
Dissertation Title: "Bypassed by Broadband: Community Planning for Technology Infrastructure"
Areas of interest: Infrastructure, Land Use and Community-Based Planning, Technology & Telecommunications; Mixed Methods and GIS; History and Theory of Planning and the Urban Form
My work generally focuses on public sector planning and implementations of technology (including digital government, uses of technology for planners, information technologies and public participation). My dissertation project focuses on telecommunications infrastructure planning. I argue that the community planning process plays an important role articulating and mobilizing pockets of demand for telecommunications that are not recognized by market providers. I make use of data and case study information drawn from a statewide planning process in Kentucky, using tools from statistics, geostatistics, and GIS.
Conference paper: "Probing the Assumptions of the Technology-Based Economic Development Nexus–An Assessment of Telecommunications Infrastructure Planning" presented at the ACSP 2006 Annual Conference, November 9-12 in Fort Worth, Texas.
- "Strategic Planning for Technology" Presented to the E-Governance Program at the Irish Institute, Boston College Boston, Massachusetts 13 October 2006
- "The State of Local E-Government and E-Democracy: Benchmarking the Progress of US Cities at Providing Online Opportunities for Citizen Engagement" in Jennifer Cowley and Maria Manta Montoy, eds., E-government: Key Citizen Participation Issues and Applications for Local Governments (Columbus: The John Glenn Institute of Public Service and Public Policy, 2005.
- "The Next Wave of e-Government: The Challenges of Data Architecture" Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Vol. 31, No. 2, December/January 2005.
- "Today’s Scheme for Tomorrow’s Technology" co-authored with Chris Steins. Planning Magazine, July 2004.
- "E-Government: Concept and Correlates" co-authored with Lisa Wulf & David Prosperi, presented at the International Conference on Politics and Information Systems: Technologies and Applications (PISTA ’04), - Orlando, Florida, 21-25 July 2004.
- "The Evolution of Cooperation: An Assessment of Capacity Building Among the Largest U.S. Cities," International Conference on Public Participation and Information Technologies (ICPPIT-03), Cambridge, MA, 10-12 Novermber, 2003.
Kim, Eun-Young
kimey@umich.edu
Advisors: Jonathan Levine
Areas of interest: transportation planning, land use, environmental planning, and urban policy
Kolozsvari, Douglas
dougkol@umich.edu
Advisors: Joe Grengs, Jonathan Levine
Areas of interest: Sustainable transportation and land use planning; parking
Douglas Kolozsvari is interested railway transportation systems in Africa. Specifically, he is examining how the unprofitable FCE railway in Madagascar managed to stay operational despite numerous incidents that could have permanently closed the line. He is also looking at comparison railway systems in Gabon and Sierra Leone. This research aims at developing a greater understanding of how railways serve as complex sites of contestation for territory, resources, ideas and power. His research will inform researchers and practitioners about how politicians and grassroots actors frame transportation benefits, particularly when they perceive their interests as threatened by higher levels of government or international development institutions.
Papers:
- Kolozsvari, Douglas. 2006. Oakland should use parking to its advantage. Oakland Tribune, 5 July, p.M-7.
- Kolozsvari, Douglas, and Donald Shoup. 2003. Turning small change into big changes. Access Fall (23):2-7.
Larkin, Brian
larkinb@umich.edu
Advisor: June Manning Thomas
Area of interest: Housing and Community Development
Lee, Wonhyung
elsalee@umich.edu
Advisors: Gavin Shatkin, Joe Grengs
Area of interest: Economic development and community impact analysis; Urbanization/suburbanization process; Urban growth and planning strategies in East Asia.
Liu, Xuan
xliu@umich.edu
Advisor: Jonathan Levine
Areas of interest: Land Use and Transportation, Spatial Modeling, Regional Planning
My research interests range from regional demographic dynamics, to land use changes, and their connections to transportation planning. More specifically, my recent works have been focused on analyzing accessibility at regional level using computer models.
Conference paper: "Predicting Land Use Change: Using the UrbanSim Model" Presented at IMAGIN Conference, Dearborn MI, May, 2005.
Podrid, Nathan
nlpo@umich.edu
Advisor: Scott Campbell
Areas of Interest: Regionalism, Environmental Management and Policy
Nguyen-Phuoc, Nghi
I plan to focus on the issues of pro-poor housing, with particular emphasis on affordability of low-income housing with built-in environmental equity, as well as the effects of planning policy on the patterns of neighborhood demarcation that induce intra-city stratification.
Rajkovich, Nicholas
rajkovic@umich.edu
Advisors: Larissa Larsen, Dick Norton
Areas of interest: The inertia of the global climate system will cause extreme climatic events and sea level rise to continue for several centuries. Prudent planning requires adding adaptive capacity to the built environment as we simultaneously seek to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. A review of research reveals a lack of practical information on adding adaptive capacity to the built environment. To begin to address this gap, my research will investigate how the practice of demand side management might increase the ability of the built environment to respond to heat waves and other extreme climatic events.
Sami, Neha
nehasami@umich.edu
Dissertation Committee: Gavin Shatkin (chair), William Glover (cognate), Scott Campbell, Matthew Hull (members)
Dissertation Title: "Who develops? The Changing Urban Politics of Real Estate in Post-Liberalization India".
Areas of interest: International planning, urban sprawl, environmental managementMy work looks at the relationship between global economic linkages and peripheral city growth in India.
Conference paper: Local Labor for Global Exhibition-How the Rise of Construction in Preparation for the 2010 World Exposition Has Affected the Rural-Urban Migrant Population of Shanghai (Joint work with Charles Garcia and Alexander Jacobsen)-Outstanding Paper Award, Urban Development and Planning in China : China Planning Network (CPN) 3rd Annual Conference, 2006, Beijing, China
Shen, Qingyun
sqingyun@umich.edu
Advisors: Jonathan Levine & Joe Grengs
Areas of interest: My research interests started from noting the spatial pattern of job-housing imbalance in most north American metropolitan areas and the consequent problems caused by such pattern, including the daily long-distance commuting (mostly by driving), congestion, increasing auto dependence, restriction of location choices for low-income people, etc. I am interested in finding the causes of such problems and the solutions to them by looking into the mechanics of urban housing and real estate markets, the success and failure of certain programs on affordable housing, and transportation policies and planning. I am currently involved in a research project on the calibration of accessibility index of major metropolitan areas in the U.S. with Professor Levine and Professor Grengs.
Skuzinski, Thomas
skuzinsk@umich.edu
Advisor: Lan Deng
Areas of interest: affordable housing; regional governance; real estate development policy, my research currently focuses on whether the use of low income housing tax credits by public housing authorities should be encouraged beyond their current areas of concentration in the Northwest and Northeast United States. More broadly, I am interested in how various legal and fiscal policies affect affordable housing provision, especially the comparative impact on different types of housing providers (public, private for-profit, private non-profit)."
Song, Jumin
zoomin@umich.edu
Dissertation Committee: Jonathan Levine (chair), Susan Handy (UC Davis-ITS), Joe Grengs, Bob Shoeni (Public Policy & Economics)
Dissertation Title: "Planning for Accessibility: In the Context of Regional Transportation and Spatial Planning" (tentative title)
Areas of interest: Transportation-Land Use Policy and Planning, Regional Transportation and Blueprint/Scenario Planning, Spatial Analysis
My academic interest is to examine the interrelationships of transportation investment, development patterns, and travel demand. For my practical interest, I am now involved in the California Regional Blueprint Planning Program at the California Department of Transportation.
Conference/publication paper: "Revisiting the Relationship between Mobility and Accessibility: Complementary or Contradictory? (ACSP, 2006)"; "Public Transport Reforms in Seoul: Innovations Motivated by Funding Crisis (JPT, 2005)"; "Matching Smart Growth Policies to Community Needs: The Smart Growth Matrix for Transportation Planning Agencies (TRB, 2003)"
Stockmann, Deirdra
deirdra@umich.edu
Advisors: Scott Campbell, Margaret Dewar
Areas of interest: Food systems planning, regional planning, land use
I am exploring the role regional planning plays and can play in the food system - primarily in North America. I am interested in, to simplify, ’Farm to City’ linkages and how they can address both peri-urban land use issues and economic viability of ’working lands’ as well as urban food security, access and public health. My work will also explore how planning in the last 150 years has, whether intentional or not, affected the food system.
Vanka, Salila
salila@umich.edu
Advisors: Larissa Larsen, Gavin Shatkin
Areas of interest: technology, greening of cities, developing countries
Wang, Xiaoguang
xgw@umich.edu
Dissertation Committee: Joe Grengs (chair), Carl P. Simon (cognate), Jonathan Levine, Lidia Kostyniuk (members)
Dissertation Title: "Investigating the energy-efficient built environment: from drivers? perspective".
Areas of interest: Transportation and land use planning, Spatial data analysis
My work examines the effect of built environment (i.e. land use patterns, transportation system, and design features) on travel behavior. How to use GIS and apply spatial data analysis methods in planning research are also parts of my interests.
Conference paper: "The Application of Geostatistics Methods in Analyzing Housing Data," Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, Ft. Worth, TX, November, 2006.
Weber, Matthew
matweber@umich.edu
Advisor: Margaret Dewar & Richard Norton
Areas of interest: Community development, central city planning, local and regional economic analysis, evaluation research, poverty and welfare policy.
My research addresses the intersection between poverty policy and urban policy, particularly as it relates to the redevelopment of distressed central cities. To what extent do policies in these two areas support each other? To what extent do they undermine each other? What lessons can we learn from one discipline to make practices in the other discipline more effective?
Weimar, W Cameron
cweimar@umich.edu
Advisor: Larissa Larsen
Areas of interest: Energy & Environmental Planning, Planning for Sustainability, Urban Design, Working Lands Conservation
I am currently interested in exploring how land use policy and planning may influence the development of the burgeoning U.S. alternative fuels industry. I am also curious about how increasing energy demand and new utility infrastructure may conflict with existing land uses. I recently completed the Master of Urban Design program at Michigan (2006) and am pursuing both academic & professional publication opportunities while professionally practicing urban design & planning with the Midwest design firm JJR.
