Find Academic Supervisors

Paavo MonkkonenView profile

Professor

• Urban Planning
• Public Policy
• Housing Policy
• +7 more

Paavo Monkkonen is a Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His research focuses on how policies and markets shape urbanization, housing affordability, and social segregation globally, with notable work in Latin America, Asia, and the U.S. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley and an M.P.P. from UCLA Luskin. Monkkonen has been a visiting scholar at institutions including the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Sciences Po Paris, and a Fellow at the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies (2024–2025). His research explores land use regulations, housing finance, and urban equity. Recent projects include studies on California’s fair housing laws and France’s social housing systems. Monkkonen teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, and urban segregation. He founded the Latin American Cities Initiative (Ciudades) to foster academic and professional networks across the Americas. Monkkonen’s work has been supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. His publications appear in journals like the Journal of the American Planning Association and Urban Studies , addressing topics such as zoning effects on segregation, housing development politics, and cross-national urban policy comparisons. He has advised on urban planning initiatives and contributed to policy debates on housing affordability, zoning reform, and equitable urban growth. His current research focuses on implementing fair housing laws in California and analyzing urban form’s environmental impacts.

Barbara A KnuthView profile

Academic

• Ecosystem-Based Management
• Environmental Policy
• Fisheries Conservation
• +4 more

Barbara A. Knuth is a Professor Emerita at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. She previously served as Dean of Cornell's Graduate School (over 10 years), Vice Provost/Senior Vice Provost (8 years), and Senior Associate Dean in CALS (3 years). Her academic career began with a PhD in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences from Virginia Tech (1987), making her the first woman in tenure-track faculty at Cornell's Department of Natural Resources. Education: Ph.D., Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences (Virginia Tech) M.En., Environmental Science (Miami University) B. Phil. & A.B., Zoology/Environmental Studies (Miami University, Phi Beta Kappa) Research Interests: Focuses on ecosystem-based management in Great Lakes/marine systems, risk communication around chemical contaminants in fish, and environmental stewardship. Also studies equity/inclusion in graduate education. Key themes include: Social science integration in natural resource policy Health benefits/risk trade-offs in fish consumption Community-based conservation strategies Outreach: Advises state/tribal agencies on fishery management and public health. Led initiatives improving graduate education through professional development, mental health support, and faculty mentoring programs. Awards: Debra W. Stewart Award (2019) Fellow, American Fisheries Society (2015-) Council of Graduate Schools Recognition Multiple teaching/research awards (1999-2006) Grants & Funding: Supported by NSF, Sea Grant, EPA, Sloan Foundation, and others for projects on Great Lakes management, educational equity, and contaminant risk communication. Labs/Teams: Affiliated with Cornell's Center for Conservation Social Sciences. Collaborated with Ecologists Without Borders, Great Lakes Fishery Commission, and National Academies Ocean Studies Board.

Scott CampbellView profile

Associate Professor

• Planning Theory
• Sustainability
• Economic Development
• +4 more

Scott Campbell is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Michigan Society of Fellows and has directed the Doctoral Urban Planning Program for a decade. His work bridges planning theory, sustainability, and regional development. Ph.D. and MCP in Urban Planning from UC Berkeley B.A.S. in Environmental Earth Sciences and German from Stanford Additional education at Technische Universität Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin via DAAD Scott's research focuses on sustainability, economic development, and planning theory. His writings often explore intersections between military industrialization, regional economies, and environmental justice. Recent projects emphasize complexity in urban planning and technology-driven urbanism. His publications include The Rise of the Gunbelt and the Readings in Planning Theory series. He has taught courses on Regional Planning, Sustainability and Social Change, and Tech Clusters and Smart Cities since 2023. National Planning Award (APA) for sustainable development writing Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals (2018) Scott Campbell has presented at conferences like the Association of European Schools of Planning and led courses in urban theory, economic development, and technology clusters. His work continues to influence debates on planning ethics and spatial justice.

Juan WangView profile

Associate Professor

• Comparative Government and Politics
• Political Economy of Development
• Law and Politics
• +3 more

Juan Wang is an Associate Professor at McGill University, specializing in the study of the Chinese state, its institutional dynamics, and interactions between state and non-state actors. His research focuses on China's political economy of development, legal systems, and authoritarian governance. He holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and teaches courses on Chinese politics, contentious politics, and judicial systems. Research interests emphasize the construction of bureaucracy, local governance patterns, and epistemology of state power. Methodologically, he uses qualitative and historical approaches to explore topics like judicial corruption, police evolution, and cadre discipline. Recent work examines authoritarian cue effects and comparative citizen categorization systems in China and North Korea. His publications span journals such as American Journal of Political Science and China Law and Society Review , analyzing themes like state repression mechanisms, legal mediation practices, and subnational court empowerment. He has contributed a seminal book The Sinews of State Power (2017) on rural governance dynamics. Advising and grants information is not explicitly detailed in the provided text.

Gulsah AkarView profile

Professor

• Sustainable Urban Mobility
• Transportation Planning
• Urban Sustainability
• +5 more

Gulsah Akar is a Professor and Chair of the School of City & Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology. She specializes in sustainable urban mobility, focusing on built environment-travel connections, equity, and new mobility technologies. Her research has been supported by grants from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Prior to Georgia Tech, she held a professorship at The Ohio State University (OSU), where she led the PhD Program in City and Regional Planning from 2015–2021 and served as Research Program Lead at OSU’s Sustainability Institute (2019–2021). Her research interests include transportation equity, multimodal travel behavior, and smart city technologies. She co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals, with recent work examining pandemic impacts on urban resilience, autonomous vehicle adoption, and aging populations’ travel patterns. Akar holds editorial roles, including former Editor of the Journal of Planning Literature (2015–2021), and actively contributes to Transportation Research Board committees. Educated at Middle East Technical University (B.Sc. and M.Sc.) and the University of Maryland (Ph.D.), her academic career bridges transportation engineering and urban planning. Key research trends in her publications focus on: 1) built environment interactions with travel behavior, 2) equity in mobility access, and 3) innovation in transportation systems. Her articles consistently analyze data from major U.S. cities like Columbus, Seattle, and New York.

Jan K. BruecknerView profile

Professor

• Urban Economics
• Public Economics
• Industrial Organization (Airline Economics)
• +5 more

Jan K. Brueckner is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine, and a member of the Institute of Transportation Studies. He holds dual expertise in Urban Economics and Airline Economics, with affiliations spanning academia and policy research. His career includes roles at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and visiting positions at institutions like Sapienza University of Rome and Charles University in Prague. Education: PhD (Economics) from Stanford University (1976), A.B. (Economics) from UC Berkeley (1972). Research focuses on urban growth, fiscal federalism, transportation economics, and housing policy, with over 100 journal articles and 7 books. He has advised governments globally on land-use policies and airline regulations. Research highlights include analyzing urban sprawl, zoning regulations, airline alliances, and the impact of telework on cities. Awards include the John M. Quigley Medal (2015) and Walter Isard Award (2008). He chaired 49 doctoral committees and edited major journals like Journal of Urban Economics . Consulting experience includes advising the World Bank, U.S. Department of Transportation, and airlines on policy and market dynamics. His recent work explores post-pandemic urbanization, carbon reduction in aviation, and land-use regulation in China and India.

• Robotics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• +7 more

Lerrel Pinto is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at New York University's Courant Institute, where he leads the General-purpose Robotics and AI Lab (GRAIL). His research focuses on enabling robots to generalize and adapt in unstructured environments through advancements in robot learning, decision making, and multimodal sensing. Before joining NYU, he completed a postdoc at UC Berkeley, a PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, and an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at IIT Guwahati. Key research areas include large-scale robot learning, representation learning for sensory data, reinforcement learning for adaptability, and open-source robotics hardware. Notable achievements include the Sloan Fellowship (2025), NSF CAREER Award (2024), and Best Paper Awards at multiple robotics conferences. Pinto's lab has developed influential systems such as the AnySkin tactile sensing framework and the OPEN TEACH teleoperation system. Education highlights include a PhD from CMU (2019) under Abhinav Gupta, a postdoctoral stint with Alexei Efros and Pieter Abbeel at Berkeley, and undergraduate studies at IIT Guwahati. He has authored over 65 publications in top conferences like ICRA, NeurIPS, and CVPR. Pinto teaches courses on robotics, reinforcement learning, and AI at NYU. His service contributions include roles on program committees for ICML, NeurIPS, and IROS, as well as organizing workshops on topics like Dexterous Manipulation and Vision-Language Models for Robotics. His team actively collaborates through the GRAIL lab, with current projects exploring tactile sensing, zero-shot policy deployment, and multimodal robot learning systems. Ongoing research emphasizes bridging the gap between human and robotic dexterity through novel reward structures and adaptive control frameworks.

• International Trade
• Industrial Organization
• Environmental Economics
• +3 more

Sharat Ganapati is an Assistant Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (Primary Appointment) and affiliated faculty in the Department of Economics at Georgetown University. He holds positions as a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Faculty Research Fellow and a CESifo Research Affiliate. His expertise spans international trade, industrial organization, environmental economics, and spatial economics. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University (2017), following degrees from the University of Chicago (B.S. Mathematics, B.A. Economics, 2009). His research focuses on the interplay of trade policies, firm behavior, and spatial economic dynamics. Notable contributions include studies on transshipment hubs, urban welfare, and remote work trends. His work has been published in top journals like the American Economic Journal , Journal of Political Economy , and Journal of Economic Perspectives . Ganapati has received prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Yale Dissertation Fellowship and IBM Thomas J. Watson Scholarship. He advises graduate students such as Cam Healy and Philipp Ludwig and has held editorial roles in journals including the Journal of International Economics and Review of Economics and Statistics . His grants include NSF funding for research on firm heterogeneity. Professional activities include seminars at institutions like Harvard, MIT, and the Federal Reserve.

Alexander DunlapView profile

Researcher

• Political Ecology
• Environmental Justice
• Extractive Development
• +3 more

Alexander Dunlap is a Research Scientist at Boston University's Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS) and a visiting research fellow at the University of Helsinki's Global Development Studies department. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, an MSc in Modules from the University of Sussex (UK), an MA in Environment, Development and Policy from Sussex, and a BS in Political Science from Portland State University (USA). His work critically examines energy transitions, extractive industries, and the socioecological impacts of green capitalism. Research Interests: Political ecology of low-carbon technologies Green extractivism in global contexts Decolonial and anarchist approaches to sustainability State violence and counterinsurgency tactics Environmental justice in renewable energy projects Publications: Dunlap’s recent work focuses on solar energy injustices in California, industrial solar manufacturing in Ohio, and the militarization of nature. His articles interrogate how 'green' infrastructure reinforces colonial and capitalist systems, often through spatial dispossession and anti-Indigenous violence. Labs/Teams: Active in IGS research clusters studying infrastructural harm and energy justice. Co-editor of Human Geography , a journal promoting radical interdisciplinary scholarship. Future Work: Continuing research on solar project lifecycles, particularly mining-to-decommissioning impacts, and expanding analysis of Europe’s energy grid conflicts.

Christina LeslieView profile

Research Professor

• Computational Biology
• Systems Biology
• Machine Learning
• +7 more

Dr. Christina Leslie is a Research Professor and Member of the Computational & Systems Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). She leads an active research laboratory focused on developing computational approaches to understand complex biological systems. Dr. Leslie earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and has established herself as a leading computational biologist in cancer research and immunology. Computational & Systems Biology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dr. Leslie's research focuses on developing novel computational methods to study cellular biological systems from a global and data-driven perspective. Her lab exploits diverse high-throughput functional and genomic data to understand molecular networks underlying fundamental cellular processes, including transcription regulation, pre-mRNA processing, signaling, and post-transcriptional gene silencing. Her algorithmic methods draw heavily on machine learning to build accurate predictive models from noisy and high-dimensional biological data. Key areas of interest include modeling cell-type specific transcriptional programs and dissecting co- and post-transcriptional regulation, particularly microRNA-mediated gene regulation. Analysis of Dr. Leslie's publication record over the last five years reveals a strong focus on computational approaches to cancer genomics, immunology, and epigenetics. Her work bridges multiple disciplines, with a particular emphasis on developing machine learning methods to interpret complex biological data. The publications demonstrate increasing sophistication in integrating multiple data types (genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic) to understand cancer biology and immune responses. Recent work shows a growing emphasis on single-cell technologies and spatial analysis of tumor microenvironments. Introduction of string kernel methodology for SVM classification of biological sequences Development of algorithms for predictive modeling of gene regulation First systems-level analyses of competition between microRNAs and between target transcripts Dr. Leslie actively mentors numerous graduate students and research associates, with current lab members including Vianne Gao, Alireza Karbalaghareh, Erik Ladewig, and several others. Her lab has received significant research funding to support their work on computational approaches to cancer biology and immunology. The Leslie Lab maintains close collaborations with multiple experimental groups at MSK, facilitating the translation of computational insights into biological understanding. The Leslie Lab operates within the Computational & Systems Biology Program at MSK, with strong ties to both the research and clinical missions of the institution. The lab maintains state-of-the-art computational infrastructure for analyzing large-scale genomic and proteomic datasets and collaborates extensively with wet-lab researchers to validate computational predictions experimentally.

Carolyn ParkinsonView profile

Associate Professor

• Social Neuroscience
• Affective Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• +4 more

Carolyn Parkinson is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), holding the Bernice Wenzel and Wendell Jeffrey Term Endowed Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research integrates social psychology with computational neuroscience to explore how the human brain represents, navigates, and shapes social environments. University: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Academic Rank: Associate Professor Research Focus: Social and Affective Neuroscience, Social Network Analysis, Neural Mechanisms of Psychological Distance At the Computational Social Neuroscience Lab , Parkinson investigates: Neural encoding of social network structures Shared mechanisms for spatial, temporal, and social distance perception Computational modeling of social cognition Functional MRI analysis of social relationships Her work reveals that: Resting-state brain connectivity predicts social proximity Multivoxel patterns decode social knowledge representations Old cortical structures repurpose spatial processing for social cognition Neural population coding transcends historical phrenology-based approaches Notable awards include the Bernice Wenzel and Wendell Jeffrey Term Endowed Chair. She employs machine learning and social network theory to analyze distributed brain activity patterns, advancing understanding of human social behavior and cognition.

Leah K VanWeyView profile

Professor

• Social Demography
• Environmental Social Science
• Land Use Change
• +7 more

Leah K VanWey is Professor of Environment and Society and Sociology at Brown University, where she also serves as Dean of the School of Professional Studies. She holds affiliations with the Department of Sociology, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Population Studies and Training Center, Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, and Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies. Previously, she served as Senior Deputy Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Associate Director of the Population Studies and Training Center, and Associate Provost for Academic Space. VanWey completed her education at the University of North Carolina, earning a BA (1996), MA (1999), and PhD (2001). Her research focuses on social demography and environmental social science, particularly examining household responses to reforestation programs in Brazil's Atlantic Forest and the social/environmental impacts of frontier settlement in the Amazon. Her research interests include agricultural intensification, land use change, migration patterns, population-environment interactions, household dynamics, intergenerational support systems, and remittance economies, with a geographic focus on Brazil. She employs interdisciplinary approaches, collaborating with anthropologists, geographers, ecologists, and other social scientists. VanWey has secured significant research funding including grants from NSF, NIH, and NASA totaling over $2.5 million. Major projects include studying agricultural expansion in Brazil, climate variability impacts, land use change dynamics, and population-environment linkages. She mentors graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, including Trina Vithayathil. She teaches courses on human-environment interactions and research methods, including: Feeding Ten Billion, Methods for Interdisciplinary Environmental Research, Multivariate Statistical Methods, Fields and Methods of Social Research, and Professional Development seminars.

Ute FendlerView profile

Professor

• Francophone Literatures
• Postcolonial Studies
• African Cinema
• +7 more

Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler holds the Chair of Romance Literature and Comparative Studies with Special Emphasis on Africa at the University of Bayreuth. Her academic journey includes a 2006 Habilitation and 1992 PhD from Saarland University, with research spanning Francophone African literatures , intermedial phenomena , and postcolonial cinematic analysis . She coordinates the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies as Vice-Director and serves on multiple editorial boards. 2006-Present: Professor at University of Bayreuth 2011-2015: Director of Institute for African Studies 2015-Present: Vice-Director of Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies Her research interrogates urban ecotonal spaces through African music videos, transnational cinematic flows in African and Afro-Asian contexts, and mediated memory practices . Recent publications explore post-apocalyptic storytelling and decolonial aesthetics in music videos and films. Scientific contributions include: 2025: Staging Atmosphere: Urban Ecotonal Spaces in African Music Videos (Brill) 2024: Co-edited Asia-Africa: Multifaceted Engagement (Palgrave Macmillan) 2022: Animating the Future: Superheroes in Africa (Brill) 2020: Ghosts as Mediators: Memory and Hauntology (iwalewabooks) 2019: K-Pop Fandom in Germany (Korea University Press) She received the Faculty Enrichment Award from the Canadian Embassy in 2005 and serves on multiple academic committees including the University Library Commission (2007-2016).

Richard HornbeckView profile

Professor

• Economic History
• Applied Microeconomics
• American Economic Development
• +7 more

Richard Hornbeck is the V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is an economic historian and applied-micro economist whose research focuses on the historical development of the American economy, examining why some places and people have become wealthier while others have remained poorer. Hornbeck is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, affiliated with programs on the Development of the American Economy, Development Economics, and Environmental and Energy Economics. Hornbeck's research spans multiple critical areas of economic history, with particular emphasis on slavery and emancipation economics, environmental history (especially the Dust Bowl migration), gender dynamics in 19th-century manufacturing, railroad development, and agricultural economics related to the Ogallala Aquifer. His work frequently utilizes newly digitized historical data to provide fresh insights into longstanding economic questions, connecting historical events to contemporary economic issues of wealth distribution and regional disparities. His publication record shows strong trends in American economic development research, with recent work focusing on the economic impacts of emancipation, historical manufacturing patterns by gender, and urban economic development. Many of his papers have been published as lead articles in top journals including the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, and Review of Economics and Statistics. Hornbeck has received several prestigious honors including the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in 2014 and selection for the 2009 Review of Economic Studies Tour. His NBER affiliations demonstrate his standing in multiple subfields of economics research. Prior to joining Chicago Booth in 2015, Hornbeck was the Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History in the Economics Department at Harvard University. He received his PhD in economics from MIT in 2009 and a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 2004. His teaching includes courses on applied microeconomics in economic history and business in historical perspective, with course schedules extending through 2026.

Brian KwokView profile

Associate Professor

• Communication Design
• Visual Culture
• Information Design
• +4 more

Brian Kwok is an Associate Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's School of Design, where he serves as Programme Leader of BA Communication Design and heads the Information Design Lab. His academic foundation includes an MA in Design from PolyU, complemented by an MA in Visual Culture Studies and MPhil in Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With over a decade of tenure at PolyU, Kwok co-founded the Information Design Lab in 2011 to advance research in practical design applications. Kwok's research explores the intersection of visual communication, cultural heritage, and urban environments. Primary domains include: Neon Signage Studies : Documentation and semiotic analysis of Hong Kong's vanishing neon landscapes Healthcare Communication : Typographic legibility for medication labeling targeting senior citizens Urban Ethnography : Spatial practices of street vendors and visual narratives in public spaces Cultural Preservation : Archival projects on Hong Kong's typographic heritage and vernacular design His publication corpus (2015-2023) demonstrates consistent focus on Hong Kong's visual culture evolution, with recurring themes: cultural identity in urban signage, typographic accessibility for vulnerable populations, and cinematic representations of urban change. Methodologically, he blends empirical studies (e.g., user testing of medicine labels) with visual semiotics and historical documentation. Awards recognize both scholarly and practical impact: GRF-funded research on neon sign preservation (2023) Arts Go Digital grant for cultural documentation (2021) HKDA Global Design Excellence Award (2017) Outstanding Paper Award for neon signage research (2017) As Lab Leader, Kwok oversees projects including medicine label optimization, wayfinding systems, and the Fading of HK Neon Visual Culture Project. He actively engages with public institutions through roles on the Public Libraries Advisory Committee and as external examiner for academic programs.