The initial slate of nominees for the 2025 Governing Board Election is listed below. There are four (4) vacancies. The board term for the four individuals elected will be 2025-2028. Nominations by petition will be accepted until November 4, 2024. UAA members should check their email for details.
Nominees are listed in alphabetical order by surname. To read the bio statement of a nominee, click on the + next to their name.
Martine August is an Associate Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo. She teaches classes related to urbanization, social justice, and housing. Her research focuses on housing, financialization, and inequality, and has appeared in journals including the Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, and Antipode. She has collaborated with community-based organizers in Toronto and Canada’s Federal Housing Advocate to promote affordability and secure tenure in housing. She formerly held a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers University and worked as a housing policy advisor for the Ontario government’s housing ministry. Originally from Winnipeg, she received her Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Department of Geography and Program in Planning at the University of Toronto.
Martine has been attending the UAA since 2010. She has presented many numerous papers at the annual conference, and served as a conference volunteer. She is a member of the 2024 Program Committee, has served on the Emerging Scholar Award adjudication committee and has for several years taken part in professional development sessions for graduate students. She is honoured to have received the 2011 Emerging Scholar Award, and the 2018 Best Conference Paper Award.
Martine’s purpose in serving on the board is to support the UAA in continuing to strengthen the supportive intellectual community the organization has built. She is interested in continuing to build spaces for member collaboration on shared research interests both during and beyond the annual meeting, to emphasize social justice in urban affairs scholarship, and to promote inclusion and professional development for graduate student members.
Ben Gerlofs is an Assistant Professor of Human Geography and a Research Fellow of the Urban Systems Institute at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), where he also serves as Deputy Head of Department (for Teaching and Learning), Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Inaugural Director of the Cartographica Laboratory and Library. A broadly-trained human geographer and interdisciplinary urbanist, his research focuses on urban change across spatio-temporal scale, often in comparative perspective, and has involved such issues as urban governance and social mobilization, gentrification, the politics of aesthetics, and the commodification of nature. His current projects are based in Hong Kong, Mexico City, Singapore, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, building on previous work in Chicago and New York. His first monograph, Monstrous Politics: Geography, Rights, and the Urban Revolution in Mexico City, was published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2023.
Ben has recently taken up duties as a Book Review Co-Editor (with Kathe Newman) for the Journal of Urban Affairs. He also serves on the Board of the Royal Geographical Society-Hong Kong, and is an active member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), in addition to the Urban Affairs Association (UAA). He holds a Ph.D. in Geography (Rutgers), and has previously taught at Queens College (CUNY), Dartmouth College, and Princeton University.
Ben hopes to join the Board of the UAA in order to help extend the organization’s global reach, and to enhance its impact and influence in Asia and Latin America especially.
Cecilia Giusti is Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Architecture, at Texas A&M University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in economic development and Planning and International issues mostly related to the developing world, and Latin America in particular. Her research focuses on low-income micro entrepreneurs and their contribution to local economic development; her approach is multidisciplinary, involving financing, gender, equity, and ethnic perspectives as well as built and environmental considerations. Her research has appeared in JAPA, Habitat International, Cities, among other venues. Her article on Latino vendor markets (co-author with Dr. Ledesma) won Best Paper Award in Planning & Entrepreneurship 2021 by the Association Collegiate Schools of Planning.
Cecilia’s service to UAA includes work as a member of the technical and local conference organization committees, on the Best Book Award, as a volunteer in the conference’s mentoring lunches; she organized the first conference track on Latin American Urban Issues. She co-led (with Dr. Capanema) a special issue on Latin America for the Journal of Urban Affairs. She has worked in the formation of LACUAnet, the Latin American and Caribbean Urban Affairs Network, inviting and engaging researchers for this region.
Cecilia seeks election to the Board to contribute to the overall content and outreach of the UAA. She is especially committed to expanding the UAA international horizons, ensuring the voices from the south are incorporated into the discussion of urban affairs; focusing on Latina America, and beyond.
Cathy Yang Liu is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Management and Policy, and the Michael and Enid Mescon Endowed Chair in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. She conducts research and publishes widely on topics related to community and economic development, urban policy, employment and labor market, as well as migration and entrepreneurship in both the U.S. and international contexts. She received her Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Planning from the University of Southern California.
Dr. Liu has been actively involved in UAA since 2007 as GSU’s Institutional Representative and is currently serving as the Chair of the Governing Board for 2024-5. Over the years, she has served as a Member and Secretary of the Board, chaired the Asia Pacific Special Track, and served on various committees including the Conference Program Committee, the Nominations Committee, and the Finance committee, among others. She is also a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Urban Affairs.
Dr. Liu seeks re-election to the Board to continue with the several important initiatives that the board is working on right now: to expand the international and disciplinary reach of the association, create UAA communities and network opportunities, collaborate with peer associations, strengthen its institutional structure and maintain its long-term sustainability.
Dr. Antoine Lovell is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Morgan State University, with research focusing on the risk and protective factors for unhoused youth and emerging adults in public housing. His work has been published in the Journal of Urban Affairs and Housing Policy Debate. Before academia, Dr. Lovell served as COO/A of a peer-led organization providing supportive housing to justice-involved and homeless individuals. He holds a Ph.D. in social policy from Fordham University, an MSW from New York University, and an MPA from Long Island University. He also completed a research residency as a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice.
Dr. Lovell’s service to the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) includes organizing a colloquy session for the 2020 UAA Conference, titled “Public Housing Residents Know Best: The Use of Qualitative Research in Policy Decisions,” and serving on the Best Paper Award Committee. He has presented research on housing instability and youth homelessness and attended UAA conferences as a student.
Dr. Lovell seeks election to the UAA Board to advance equity and diversity within the organization. He is dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in urban research and ensuring that UAA conferences are inclusive and representative of diverse perspectives. He aims to organize panels addressing critical urban issues and elevate the voices of scholars from historically marginalized communities.
José W. Meléndez is Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the School of Planning Public Policy, and Management at the University of Oregon, and is the Director of the School’s Ph.D. program. Dr. Meléndez’ research centers on the design of participatory and decision-making processes, to identify how language usage and tools, modes of participation, and the inclusion of new participants in these processes impact one another and influence process, policy, and learning outcomes. Dr. Meléndez teaches courses across degrees that focus on leadership development, community organizing and a design-based approach to community engagement that introduces students to different frameworks and models, including his own System level community engagement: Designing across three planes approach.
Dr. Meléndez has been a UAA member since 2014, attending his first conference as a Ph.D. student. From 2016-2019, he served on the Ad Hoc Committee on UAA Honor Society, tasked with creating UAA’s Upsilon Sigma. In 2018, Dr. Meléndez founded, and has since coordinated, the Teaching Effectiveness Academy for UAA, consisting of half-day professional development workshops for instructors. During his time on the board, he has focused on maintaining the high quality of teaching PD offered by UAA and is the lead on the Ad-hoc Committee that is developing the guidelines on the formation and inclusion of interest groups for UAA.
If elected to a second term, Dr. Meléndez would like to ensure interest groups get off to a strong start, as well as be flexible to taking on leadership positions as needed.
Dr. Deyanira Nevarez Martinez is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on housing justice, homelessness, and the role of the state in housing precarity and informality. She
conducts interdisciplinary research centered on vulnerable populations. Dr. Nevarez Martinez has also served as an expert witness in legal cases concerning homelessness and housing rights. In 2021, she was recognized as an Emerging Poverty Scholar by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Nevarez Martinez has attended the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) conference since she was a graduate student, gaining valuable insights from the academic community and professional development opportunities it provides. Her mentor, Dr. Vicki Basolo, who served on the UAA Board and as editor of the Journal of Urban Affairs, instilled in her a strong commitment to the mission of UAA. Through the organization, Dr. Nevarez Martinez has developed professional relationships that have greatly shaped her career.
Dr. Nevarez Martinez is eager to contribute to UAA’s continued success by serving on the Board. She aims to support UAA’s mission of fostering urban research that informs policy and practice, with a focus on housing justice and social equity. As a first-generation scholar and Latina in academia, she is committed to promoting inclusivity within the organization and ensuring that future scholars benefit from UAA’s resources.
Rachael A. Woldoff is an urban sociologist and Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. She received a PhD in sociology from The Ohio State University, specializing in crime and community. Her work focuses on neighborhood crime and disorder, urban redevelopment, and racial/ethnic differences in neighborhood attainment, as well as the subjects of neighborhood racial change, gentrification, housing affordability, and creative class cities. Her research has appeared in Social Forces, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies. Her book, White Flight/Black Flight: The Dynamics of Racial Change in an American Neighborhood, was awarded the UAA Best Book Award.
Dr. Woldoff received the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Researcher Award. She has coauthored three other books including High Stakes: Big Time Sports and Downtown Redevelopment and Priced Out: Stuyvesant Town and the Loss of Middle-Class Neighborhoods. She served as Deputy Editor of the journal City & Community and Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Community and Urban Sociology Section (CUSS). Her newest book, Digital Nomads: In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy (Oxford University Press 2021), examines community, creative class cities, and the rise of remote work.
Rachael has served on UAA’s conference Host Committee and Book Award Development Committee, and she has delivered a seminar on book publishing for UAA. She currently serves as a board member and as chair of the Conference Policy Committee.