The outcome of the 2025 Governing Board Election is listed below. The board term for these individuals will be 2025-2028.
MARTINE AUGUST, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO (CANADA)
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.
CATHY YANG LIU, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES)
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.
JOSÉ W. MELÉNDEZ, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON (UNITED STATES)
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.
DEYANIRA NEVAREZ MARTINEZ, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY (UNITED STATES)
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.