Hao Ding

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Hao Ding is a doctoral student in Urban Planning, focusing on urban design and transportation planning. His research interests include the equity and justice impacts of urban design regulations, the interaction between urban form and transportation, and transportation equity. His most recent works examine the effects of urban design and land use regulations on place identities in the Asian American ethnoburbs in Los Angeles, and the effects of conventional local transportation planning practices on housing production and affordability. He is also a Graduate Student Researcher at the Institute of Transportation studies, and has been involved in several research projects that study the past, present, and future of California’s land use and transportation systems, sexual harassment on public transit, homelessness in transit environments, and public transit during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jessica Bremner

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Jessica Bremner is a PhD candidate in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests lie at the intersections of spatial justice, gender, housing, participatory practices, and democracy. Her dissertation research examines the processes that shape the spatial inequality of water access in the Coachella Valley. Jessica was awarded the Babbitt Dissertation Fellowship from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy to support this research.

Prior to entering the PhD program at UCLA, Jessica was the Planning Director of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a non-profit community development and design firm based in Los Angeles, USA and Nairobi, Kenya. Jessica has coordinated, supervised, and implemented community development programs aimed at empowering communities around the world. Her projects have ranged in scope and scale from a on online portal to identify water and sanitation connections in Kibera, Kenya to a Play Street pilot project for the City of Los Angeles to the development of a 5-acre park in the Eastern Coachella Valley. She has led dozens of participatory workshops to design, build, and implement public space projects that address social, economic, and physical needs of low-income communities. Her projects and processes have been featured in the New York Times and exhibited at the Louisiana Art Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt in New York, USA. Her dissertation builds from six years of working in the Coachella Valley with KDI.

Before joining KDI, she assisted management and evaluation of the Inter-American Foundation’s Brazil and Ecuador grant portfolios and worked for the Planning Department of the City of West Hollywood. Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from Tulane University and dual Master of Arts in Urban Planning and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Past research projects include examining informality and slum upgrading programs in Brazil and community-engaged research on unpermitted housing and displacement in Los Angeles.

Andres F. Ramirez

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Andrés F. Ramirez is a writer, curator and cultural producer, working in the realm of architecture  urban planning and design. He is the co-founder of PLANE–SITE, an agency devoted to the production and dissemination of original content for architecture and the built environment. Andrés also works as an independent consultant in architecture and urban planning projects, with an emphasis on social processes and public space. 

Andrés is Director of the non-profit research platform Aerial Futures, an organization devoted to cultural exchange surrounding the architecture of flight. He was the curator of Garden City Mega City, Urban Ecosystems of WOHA, at the Museum of the City of Mexico (2017); curator of the first contribution of the Seychelles to the XV Venice Architecture Biennale (2016) Between Two Waters, Searching for Expression in the Seychelles, and co- curator for Medellín, Topography of Knowledge at the Aedes Architecture Forum (2015).

Marques Vestal

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Marques Vestal is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Critical Black Urbanism. He serves as a Faculty Advisor for Million Dollar Hoods, a community-driven and multidisciplinary initiative documenting the human and fiscal costs of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. He also serves as a historical consultant for the Luskin Center for History and Policy. Marques is a tenant of Los Angeles and a member of the South Central local of the Los Angeles Tenants Union.

Marques is an urban historian studying the social history of residential property in Black Los Angeles during the rebellious twentieth century. His work links property conflict—the everyday contracts, solicitations, complaints, lawsuits, and murders over property—to broader transformations of real estate, urban development, and Black liberation. He argues that this space of incessant conflict is the unwritten housing policy of the United States.

Marques’ research interests are broad, but center on the twentieth-century experience of a few key political relations to land: property, housing insecurity, municipal incapacity, and racial capitalism. Having witnessed, archivally and firsthand, the violence of Los Angeles’ rental housing markets, he is dedicated to projects that advance social housing and horizontal tenant governance.

 

Publications

Marques Vestal and Andrew Klein, “What we should have learned from L.A.’s long history of homelessness,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2021. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-02-22/homelessness-encampments-shelter-los-angeles-history

Kirsten Moore-Sheeley et. al. “The Making of a Crisis: A History of Homelessness in Los Angeles,” UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. https://luskincenter.history.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2021/01/LCHP-The-Making-of-A-Crisis-Report.pdf. (February 2021)

Lytle Hernandez, Kelly and Marques Vestal. “Million Dollar Hoods: A Fully-Loaded Cost Accounting of Mass Incarceration in Los Angeles,” Radical History Review. http://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/

Katz, Alisa with Peter Chesney, Lindsay King, and Marques Vestal. “People Are Simply Unable to Pay Rent: What History Tells Us About Rent Control in Los Angeles,” White Paper. Luskin Center for History and Policy, University of California, Los Angeles. (October 2018)

Sarah Soakai

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Malo e lelei (Hello, in Tongan). Aloha (Hello, in Hawaiian). I originally hail from the Ko’olauloa Mountains and North Shores of Oahu, Hawai’i with ancestral ties to the South Pacific Islands of Tonga. I look at Community Development and Social Policy as it relates to communities on and in the margins. Current research efforts examine third sector community-based faith-based organizations and institutions and their role in social service delivery during and post COVID times. In particular, churches are central anchor institutions among Pacific Islander communities in diaspora. Research and planning with these indigenous communities means looking at their association and relationship with their faith-based organization and institution. Previous research efforts had looked at the effects of city ordinance policies concerning people experiencing homelessness that prohibit lying (sleeping) and sitting on public sidewalks, parks, beaches, and other public spaces. Third sector nonprofit community-based organizations are at the forefront of homelessness issues. And the work continues with improving trauma-informed care and alignment with state services to minimize bureaucracy and duplication.

In addition to research, I currently TA for the Urban Planning department and the Public Affairs Undergraduate program. Before my tenure as a doctoral student, I oversaw the Speech and Debate program, taught tenth grade English, eleventh and twelfth grade AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) college prep, and also did some college and career counseling at a Title 1 public high school for several years.

Given the current moment, I look forward to meeting you via email and/or Zoom, and hope to meet up soon in person.

Adam Millard-Ball

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Adam Millard-Ball is Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. His research and teaching are about transportation, the environment, and urban data science. Trained as an economist, a geographer, and an urban planner, he analyzes the environmental consequences of transportation and land-use decisions, and the effectiveness of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His research uses large-scale geospatial data analysis as well as econometric and qualitative methods.

For more details about Dr. Millard-Ball’s teaching and research, please visit his website. Note that he is on sabbatical for the 2023-24 academic year.

Kelly Lytle Hernandez

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Kelly Lytle Hernandez is a professor of History, African American Studies, and Urban Planning at UCLA where she holds The Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History. She is also the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). City of Inmates recently won the 2018 James Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, 2018 Athearn Prize from the Western Historical Association, the 2018 John Hope Franklin Book Prize from the American Studies Association, and the 2018 American Book Award. Currently, Professor Lytle Hernandez is the Director and Principal Investigator for Million Dollar Hoods, a university-based, community-drive research project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. The Million Dollar Hoods team won a 2018 Freedom Now! Award from the Los Angeles Community Action Network. For her leadership on the Million Dollar Hoods team, Professor Lytle Hernandez was awarded the 2018 Local Hero Award from KCET/PBS and the 2019 Catalyst Award from the South L.A. parent/student advocacy organization, CADRE. In 2019, Professor Lytle Hernandez was named a James D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow for her historical and contemporary work.

For speaking requests, please contact Rolisa Tutwyler at CCMNT Speakers Bureau at info@ccmntspeakers.com

For media requests, please contact Jessica Wolf (UCLA Media Relations) at jwolf@stratcomm.ucla.edu

 

Awards

2010 Clements Prize for Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol

Honorable Mention, 2011 Lora Romero First Book Prize, American Studies Association

Honorable Mention, 2011 John Hope Franklin Book Prize, American Studies Association

Finalist, 2011 First Book Prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

2007 Oscar O. Winther Award for the best article to appear in the Western Historical Quarterly.

2007 Bolton-Kinnaird Award for best article on the Spanish borderlands.

 

Selected Publications

“Hobos in Heaven: Race, Incarceration, and the Rise of Los Angeles, 1880 – 1910,” Pacific Historical Review v 83, n 3 (August 2014)

“Amnesty or Abolition: Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement,” Boom: A Journal of California (Winter 2011).

MIGRA! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010)

“An Introduction to el Archivo Histórico del Instituto Nacional de Migración,” co-authored with Pablo Yankelevich, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies v 34, n 1 (Spring 2009), 157-168.

“Persecuted Like Criminals”: The Politics of Labor Emigration and Mexican Migration Controls in the 1920s and 1930s,” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies v 34, n 1 (Spring 2009), 219-239.

“The Crimes and Consequences of Illegal Immigration: A Cross-Border Examination of Operation Wetback, 1943-1954,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 2006), 421-444.

“Ni blancos ni negros: mexicanos y el papel de la patrulla fronteriza estadounidense en la definición de una nueva categoría racial, 1924-1940,” Cuicuilco v 11, n 31 (Mayo-Agosto 2004): 85-104.

Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1900 – 1999: A Sourcebook for Teachers, published by the National Center for History in the Schools (Fall 2002).

Bo Liu

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Bo Liu is a PhD Candidate in Urban Planning, focusing on climate change mitigation and urban analytics. His research interests include regional understanding of environmental change and mitigation strategies, and integrated analysis of technology, infrastructure and public policy. He is also a Senior Researcher at the Luskin Center for Innovation and a Lecturer in the Public Affairs Undergraduate Program. Previously, he worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the New York State Assembly.

 

Selected publications:

Deepak Rajagopal, Bo Liu (2020). Waste to energy: The United States can generate up to 3.2 EJ of energy annually from waste. Nature Energy 5: 18-19.

Bo Liu, Deepak Rajagopal (2019). Life cycle energy and climate benefits of energy recovery from wastes and biomass residues in the United States. Nature Energy 4: 700–708.

Sha Yu, Jill Horing, Qiang Liu, Robert Dahowski, Casie Davidson, James Edmonds, Bo Liu, Haewon Mcjeon, Jeff McLeod, Pralit Patel, Leon Clarke (2019). CCUS in China’s mitigation strategy: insights from integrated assessment modeling. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 84: 204-218.

Shweta Srinivasan, Nazar Kholod, Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Probal Pratap Ghosh, Ritu Mathur, Leon Clarke, Meredydd Evans, Mohamad Hejazi, Amit Kanudia, Poonam Nagar Koti, Bo Liu, Kirit S. Parikh, Mohd. Sahil Ali, Kabir Sharma (2017). Water and electricity in India: a multi-model study of future challenges and linkages to climate mitigation. Applied Energy 210: 673-684.

Bo Liu, Meredydd Evans, Sha Yu, Volha Roshchanka, Srihari Dukkipati, Ashok Sreenivas (2017). Effective energy data management for low-carbon growth planning: an analytical framework for assessment. Energy Policy 107: 32-42.

Lining Wang, Pralit L. Patel, Sha Yu, Bo Liu, Jeff McLeod, Leon E. Clarke, Wenying Chen (2016). Win-Win strategies to promote air pollutant control policies and non-fossil energy target regulation in China. Applied Energy 163: 244-253.

Samuel Speroni

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Sam Speroni is a doctoral student in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning and a researcher with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.  He completed his master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, also at UCLA, in June 2020.  Sam is advised by Dr. Evelyn Blumenberg and Dr. Brian D. Taylor.

Sam’s primary research interest lies at the intersection of transportation, education, and new mobility, where he looks for ways to improve equitable access to educational opportunities for vulnerable and disadvantaged student populations.  His research extends to many other aspects of travel behavior and transportation systems, all with an emphasis on equity.  Sam’s recent applied planning research project analyzing high school students’ ridehail trips to school for HopSkipDrive (full report | policy brief) received the national Neville A. Parker Award for outstanding master’s capstone in transportation policy and planning from the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC).

Sam is a Future Leaders Development fellow of the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, D.C., and in 2020 he was named the Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center (PSR UTC) outstanding student of the year.  He is also the recipient of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Graduate Fellowship (2019 and 2020) and the Intelligent Transportation Systems California / California Transportation Foundation joint graduate scholarship (2020).

Prior to UCLA, Sam was a high school English teacher and school administrator in Charlotte, North Carolina, through Teach for America.  Originally from New England, Sam grew up in Massachusetts and earned his bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies with honors from Brown University in 2011, where he was also captain of the varsity swimming & diving team.