Dr. Loretta Lees (Boston University) has been selected to receive the 2025 Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs Award.
This annual award honors an individual whose body of work has contributed to defining the field and furthering the intellectual and professional development of emerging scholars.
AWARD COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Loretta Lees with the 2025 Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs award. Dr. Lees is an urban geographer and urbanist. She is the Director of the Initiative on Cities and a Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Before joining the faculty at Boston University, she was on the faculty at Leicester University and King’s College London in the UK. Dr. Lees is a fellow of Academia Europaea, the UK Higher Education Academy, the Academy of Social Science, and the Royal Society for the Arts. She is internationally known for her research on gentrification, urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. Her contributions to urban affairs span scholarship, public engagement, and education. She is co-author or co-editor of more than seventeen books. She has also published more than sixty articles and more than forty chapters. Dr. Lees is the co-organizer of the Boston Urban Salon. She previously co-organized The Urban Salon and was Chair of the London Housing Panel. Dr. Lees has mentored over 25 doctoral students and supervised the work of several visiting scholars at universities where she was a faculty member.
AWARD RECIPIENT BIO
Loretta Lees earned her Ph.D. in Human Geography from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and now serves as Director of the Initiative on Cities (& Professor of Sociology) at Boston University. Dr. Lees held full professorships at Leicester University and King’s College London in the UK before moving to the US. She served as Chair of the London Housing Panel working with the Mayor of London 2020-22. She has published 18 books, 76 journal articles, and 45 book chapters on topics ranging from gentrification, public housing, urban policy, architecture, urban public space, social mixing, and resistance. She has been involved as an expert witness in a number of public inquiries into the demolition of council estates in London, UK. She is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Science (FAcSS) and of Academia Europaea (MAE); and in 2022 was awarded the Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the UAA. She has delivered 76 keynotes/plenaries globally; and has worked to support housing and community activist groups around the world. In 2024 she was involved in the development of, and passing by the City of Louisville, KY, an Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool – the first in the US.
AWARD PRESENTATION
The formal presentation of this award will be made at the upcoming International Conference on Urban Affairs in Vancouver, BC, Canada, at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre. The theme of this year’s conference is Urban Concentration: Challenges to Equity, Mobility, and Sustainability. The conference will convene over 900 participants from 55+ countries and representing 20+ fields of study. All award recipients will be formally recognized for their achievements during the Awards and Recognition Program on April 16, 2025; 3:00–4:15pm.
SPECIAL CONFERENCE SESSION
There will be a special conference session reflecting on the work of Dr. Lees on Thursday, April 17 at 4:40pm. The detailed conference program will be updated with additional information as it becomes available.
AWARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Robert Silverman, University at Buffalo (Chair); Robert Collins, Dillard University; Elsie Harper-Anderson, Virginia Commonwealth University; Gordana Rabrenovic, Northeastern University; Gregory Squires, George Washington University
ABOUT THE URBAN AFFAIRS ASSOCIATION
The Urban Affairs Association (UAA) is an international professional organization for 1000+ urban scholars, researchers, policy analysts, & public service providers. UAA is dedicated to creating interdisciplinary spaces for engaging in intellectual and practical discussions about urban life. Through theoretical, empirical, and action-oriented research, UAA fosters diverse activities to understand and shape a more just and equitable urban world.
In addition to hosting an annual conference, UAA sponsors ongoing professional development opportunities; Upsilon Sigma: The Urban Studies Honor Society; and two peer-reviewed journals, the Journal of Urban Affairs and the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City. You can find UAA on the web, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Facebook, and X.
