I am a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, jointly appointed in the Department of City & Regional Planning and the School of Public Health. I direct Berkeley's joint Master of City Planning (MCP) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program and lead the Center for Global Healthy Cities. My research focuses on the links between environmental health and social justice in cities, notions of expertise in science-based policy making, and the role of local knowledge in addressing environmental and public health problems. I am currently working on developing a strategy for integrating health equity into all decision making in city governance, drafting and implementing integrated upgrading plans for informal settlements and researching metrics and indicators for urban health equity. I also do program and policy analysis, including evaluating the Advance Peace gun violence reduction program. I am a practitioner and researcher focused on promoting greater health equity in cities and linking city planning and public health. My work helps build partnerships between urban residents, professional scientists and decision-makers in order to collaboratively generate policy and planning solutions that improve the qualities of cities and the well-being of residents, particularly the poor and people of color.

I am committed to engaged scholarship, which to me means using research and the resources of the university to promote change, particularly social justice. In my own work, this most often happens through partnerships with community-based organizations and governments, but also includes foundations and international agencies. In 2017, I founded the Global Learning Exchange for Healthy & Equitable Communities, linking practitioners, activists and scholars in South Africa, Kenya, India & Colombia with those in the San Francisco Bay Area.  See my recent research for more details on partnerships. I have received numerous awards for my work, including the United Nations Association Global Citizenship Award, a 2019 and 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, the 2016 UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service in Teaching, the Paul Davidoff Book Award for Street Science, and a Health Policy Investigator Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I was also a fellow at Harvard Law School, Program on Negotiation when I was a doctoral student at MIT.

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