Dr. Yasminah Beebeejaun (University College London), Dr. Ali Modarres (University of Washington Tacoma) and Dr. Deirdre Oakley (Georgia State University) have been selected as the 2026 recipients of the Scott Cummings Distinguished Editorial Service Award.
This award was established in April 2021 to highlight the significant contributions made by individuals in service to UAA’s publications. In the past, UAA has established awards that recognize scholarship and multiple service roles. However, the criteria for these awards do not adequately capture the unique contributions made by persons in editorial roles.
The award is named in honor of Scott Cummings, Editor of the Journal of Urban Affairs (JUA) from 1987 to 2005. At the beginning of Cummings’ 17-year tenure, the future of the journal was uncertain. By the end of his term, the journal had attained a solid reputation with articles by major urban scholars, was accepted by major bibliographic indexing systems, and had become part of the social science family of journals at Wiley Publishers, the largest academic publisher at the time. JUA eventually became part of the urban studies titles published by the global leader in academic journals, Taylor & Francis. UAA continued to expand its publications with the creation of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City in 2019 and the launch of the Rights to the City Book Series in 2023.
AWARD COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT
Inaugural co-editors of the Journal Race Ethnicity and the City, Dr. Yasminah Beebeejaun and Dr. Ali Modarres, through their visionary leadership, have built a journal that reflects the complexity of cities and communities that shape them by putting race and ethnicity and the city at the center of concerns. Their editorial practice is marked by care, generosity and intellectual curiosity which allows scholars, including from underrepresented backgrounds and disciplines, to engage in justice-oriented work with rigor and creativity.
Professor Deirdre Oakley’s contribution to the Journal of Urban Affairs dates back to 2015 when she served as the inaugural Housing and Community Development Managing Editor until 2018. In parallel, she was an active contributor to the JUA and the UAA. Professor Oakley actually serves on the Editorial Board of JUA and was recently the guest editor for the special issue “Black Mecca Dilemmas: Prosperity, Political Power, and Poverty.” Professor Oakley’s cutting-edge research and advancement of urban knowledge have benefited the JUA readers and beyond.
AWARD RECIPIENT BIOS
Dr. Yasminah Beebeejaun is professor of urban politics and planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. Her work focuses on feminist and anti-racist approaches to planning. Her current work focuses on rethinking planning history and challenging the colonial assumptions that have underpinned the British profession. Yasminah is currently completing a monograph with the University of California Press on race, planning, and post-war Britain. Her background is in urban planning. She completed her BA (Hons) in Town and Regional Planning (First class honours) and her PhD at the University of Sheffield. Prior to joining UCL she held lectureships at the University of Manchester and the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has been an international visiting scholar at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Michigan. Yasminah has previously served on the board of the Urban Affairs Association. She is one of the founding editors of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City published by the Urban Affairs Association and Taylor and Francis.
Dr. Ali Modarres is the Assistant Chancellor for Community Engagement at University of Washington Tacoma. He also served as Dean of the School of Urban Studies from 2013-2024. From 1999 to 2017, he was the editor-in-chief of Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning. Dr. Modarres earned his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Arizona and holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in landscape architecture from the same institution. He has published in the areas of social geography, immigration, urban development, planning, and policy. Dr. Modarres has focused a significant portion of his public scholarship on economic development through an equity lens that includes global labor migration within the larger political and economic discourses. Dr. Modarres serves on a number of governing and advisory boards for academic associations, nonprofits, and policy centers. Throughout his academic career, he has built bridges between university and community, promoting and supporting the mission of urban serving universities. Dr. Modarres is a long-term member of the Urban Affairs Association, a former UAA Board member, and the recipient of the Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs Award as well as two best paper awards from the Journal of Urban Affairs, both of which focused on issues of race and ethnicity in American cities.
Dr. Deirdre Oakley is a sociology professor whose research focuses on urban social inequalities, particularly in relation to race, housing, the built environment, and spatial arrangements. She is the Co-Director of the Center for Neighborhoods & Communities within the Georgia State University College of Arts and Sciences. Her collaborative work on the demolition of Atlanta’s public housing led to her testimony before Congress on affordable housing preservation. She has served as Editor in Chief of City & Community and managing editor, Journal of Urban Affairs. Dr. Oakley’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU of Georgia. She is collaborating with an interdisciplinary group of scholars on investigating Atlanta’s unequal street and sidewalk infrastructure, tracing its roots to the Jim Crow era and its impact on active (non-car) transit funded by the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation (PIN), as well as on an emerging project investigating food and transit insecurity in one of Atlanta’s more disadvantaged neighborhoods (a double desert). She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Sociology and an M.A. in Urban Geography from the University at Albany, SUNY, and a B.A. in American History from Bowdoin College.
AWARD PRESENTATION
The formal presentation of this award will be made at the upcoming International Conference on Urban Affairs in Chicago, Illinois. The theme of this year’s conference is No Little Plans: Realizing Urban Futures in Times of Crisis. The conference will convene 1100+ 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 29, 2026; 3:00 – 4:15pm.
AWARD COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Hélène Bélanger, Université du Québec à Montréal (Chair); Mark Davidson, Clark University; Jonathan Davies, De Montfort University; Roger Keil, York University; Igor Vojnovich, Michigan State 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.
