Ryan Good

Ryan Good serves as Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Program Director of the EMU Washington Semester at Eastern Mennonite University, based in Washington, DC. He leads an urban studies program integrating internships with academic study, focusing on DC's transformation and its community impacts.

His educational background includes:

• BA in Physics from Goshen College
• MA in Theological Studies from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
• MA in Geography & Urban Studies from Temple University
• PhD in Planning and Public Policy from Rutgers University

As an interdisciplinary urban scholar, Good specializes in community development, urban geography, and racialized geographies of inequality. His research critically analyzes the politics of place and marketized education reforms—including school closures and charter expansion—revealing how these policies exacerbate spatial inequalities in communities of color across Philadelphia and Washington, DC. He bridges historical disconnects between community development and school reform through community-centered methodologies.

His publication trajectory (2017-2025) demonstrates sustained focus on education-urban development intersections, with recent work examining charterization-gentrification dynamics in DC (2025) and community-school partnerships (2024). Key patterns include spatial analysis of school closures, critiques of neoliberal education reforms, and documentation of grassroots resistance, consistently highlighting racial and economic disparities in urban policy implementation.

At the EMU Washington Semester, Good teaches urban studies and community development courses that immerse students in DC's neighborhoods through fieldwork and collaboration with housing justice and economic equity organizations. His pedagogy emphasizes experiential learning about gentrification's impacts on lower-income communities of color, though specific grant activities or student advising details remain unmentioned in source materials.