The following individuals have been selected to receive the Mary Helen Callahan Distinguished Service Award.
- Dr. Carolyn Adams (Temple University)
- Dr. Jane Brooks (University of New Orleans)
- Dr. Nevin Brown (National Association of State Universities & Land-Grant Colleges; Siena Italian Studies )
- Dr. Barbara Ferman (Temple University)
- Dr. Robin Hambleton (University of the West of England, Bristol)
This is the highest honor that the Urban Affairs Association grants to individuals who have been inducted into the Distinguished Service Honor Roll and continued to fulfill meaningful service roles within UAA after their induction.
Selected recipients are individuals who have distinguished themselves in one or more of the following areas: 1) Exceptional and impactful service to the Urban Affairs Association; 2) Engagement outside the academy; and/or 3) Distinguished professional service that advances the work of urban affairs practitioners. The professional careers of all of this year’s recipients and the breadth of their service to UAA touch on all three areas. They have created a legacy of research, teaching, service, and mentorship that is exemplary.
AWARD RECIPIENT BIOS
Carolyn Adams is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography and Urban Planning at Temple University. She has been a member of the Temple faculty for over 30 years, teaching courses in urban development, city problems, and policies to address those problems. Adams and several Temple colleagues established the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project to create a set of social, environmental, and economic indicators that track important trends in the region, particularly indicators portraying the quality of life in local communities. In fall 2014 she published From the Outside In (Cornell University Press), a book that analyzes the role that suburban elites have played in reshaping central Philadelphia. In addition to teaching and research, Adams consults with non-profit organizations on issues ranging from community development to education and human services. She has served on the board of directors of the William Penn Foundation and the board of trustees of Moore College of Art and Design; was co-founder of Campus Philly; and served three years as President of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, on whose board she still sits.
Jane Brooks, FAICP, is a Professor Emerita at the University of New Orleans. Her specializations include: Historic Preservation Planning, Urban Design, Neighborhood Revitalization, and Urban Planning History. Dr. Brooks has been a faculty member at the University of New Orleans since 1976, where she established and coordinated the Historic Planning Preservation Planning program. Throughout her career, she has conducted neighborhood planning studies throughout the metro area for the New Orleans City Planning Commission, the Jefferson Parish Planning Department and a variety of other neighborhood and community organizations. Hurricane Katrina pushed Brooks and the UNO planning program into the limelight when she led a variety of recovery planning initiatives to support the rebuilding of Gentilly and Lakeview. She was also a member of the American Planning Association’s Planning Assessment Team that assisted the New Orleans City Planning Commission in post-Katrina planning efforts.
Nevin Brown has built an extensive career with educational organizations in the Washington D.C area such as the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), The Education Trust, and District of Columbia Public Schools. He has most recently worked as Dean of Academic Programs and President of the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership, and as Senior Fellow in Postsecondary Initiatives at Achieve. Nevin has published numerous articles regarding higher education, global civic engagement and service-learning. At the IC he acts as a Senior Fellow, contributing to the development of IC initiatives regarding intercultural exchange.
Barbara Ferman joined the faculty of the Political Science Department at Temple University in 1992 after earning her Ph.D. from Brandeis University and serving on the faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1997 Dr. Ferman founded the University Community Collaborative. Through its focus on youth empowerment and leadership development, UCC has reached hundreds of young people since its inception. Over the years Barbara raised more than $7 million in grant funds and donations to support this work. Through after school and summer programming, the UCC prepares and mobilizes high school and college-age youth to use their voices for social change: the organization’s long-term goals revolve around developing social justice leaders who will take their training into the nonprofit, public, and private sectors where they can influence what policies and decisions are made and how programs and services are delivered, with an eye towards what is fair and just for all individuals. Dr. Ferman retired in the summer of 2025 after 33 years of service to Temple and the University Community Collaborative (UCC).
Robin Hambleton, Emeritus Professor of City Leadership at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK, served two terms on the UAA Governing Board and has been active in strengthening the association’s international links since the 1990s. He has degrees in City and Regional Planning (Sheffield University), a PhD in Public Policy (University of Bristol), and has held academic positions at the University of Bristol, University of Cardiff, and Tongji University, Shanghai. In 1988 a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of California, Berkeley, provided him with the opportunity to carry out comparative research on city governance and to attend his first UAA conference. Author of many articles and numerous books on city leadership, collaborative governance and innovations in urban democracy, he served as Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1997 he was elected as the first President of the European Urban Research Association (EURA). With the support of many colleagues, he organised the first UAA/EURA international conference on ‘City Futures’. Held in Chicago in 2004, this conference was the first in what is now a five-yearly series of international UAA/EURA conferences on urban affairs.
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
Robert Silverman, University at Buffalo (Chair); Robert Collins, Dillard University; Rachel Kleit, The Ohio State University; Gordana Rabrenovic, Northeastern University; Mara Sidney, Rutgers University-Newark
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.
