subcategory for PhD students of the various Luskin programs

Emma Mehlig French

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Emma is a PhD student in Urban Planning and a Graduate Student Researcher with the Luskin Center for Innovation. Her research seeks to understand the nature and causes of maladaptation in local climate planning. Her work is grounded in the political nature of planning, as well as a strong belief in the power of individuals and social movements to shift practice through coordinated action. At the Luskin Center, Emma is helping to evaluate the first round of the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) Program, a state-funded, community-led initiative aimed at reducing local greenhouse gas emissions and improving public health and economic wellbeing in California.

Prior to coming to UCLA, Emma was a Research Scientist at the Center for Urban Innovation at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she helped launch the Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation Initiative. In 2016, Emma received a Smart Cities Fellowship, which she used to help fund independent research on the role of smart city technologies in participatory environmental planning in West Atlanta. Emma received a Master’s of City and Regional Planning and a MSc in Public Policy from Georgia Tech, and a BA in Environmental Analysis from Pitzer College.

Chaoyue Wu

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Chaoyue Wu is a doctoral student in Social Welfare. She graduated with her LL.B. in social work from Beijing Institute of Technology and her M.A. in social policy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include school violence, perpetration and victimization, mental and behavioral health, and quantitative research methods.

Before joining the PhD program at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, she worked as a research assistant on diverse projects in different Chinese societies (Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), examining the risk factors for violence involvement and the negative impacts of victimization experience on mental and behavioral health among marginalized children and adolescents.

Jihyun Oh

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Jihyun Oh earned her BA in Social Welfare at the Catholic University of Korea, her MA in Social Welfare at Seoul National University, and her MSW at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle. Prior to entering the UCLA doctoral program, in 2006-2011, she worked for various projects regarding measuring national minimum cost of living and producing Korean Welfare Panel Study data in the Division of Basic Social Security Research at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (a government-funded think tank). After completing her MSW, in 2017-2018, she interned in Partners for Our Children (UW-affiliated child welfare research center) in Seattle. Drawing on her research and practicum experiences in both Seoul and Seattle, Jihyun’s main research interest is child welfare and its association with relevant factors from both institutional and intergenerational contexts including parenting quality. Through her doctoral study at UCLA, Jihyun hopes to develop more comprehensive and systematic analysis that can contribute to improvements in child support policy and practice.

Stephanie Kathan

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Stephanie Kathan (née Thorne) is a third year Social Welfare PhD student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Stephanie earned her Master of Science in Social Work with a concentration in Administration and Policy Practice from the University of Texas at Austin and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Sexuality Studies from the University of California at Davis. She has worked with children and families in diverse environments for several years, including providing equine therapy, volunteering at a crisis nursery, providing tutoring services, completing family assessments, and in social work case management. Additionally, Stephanie has experience in developmental psychology research and child welfare research. Before starting at UCLA, Stephanie was a Research Associate at a state-wide Texas child placing agency. Stephanie’s research interests include foster care systems and child development improvements within multi-generational early childhood interventions. Stephanie is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Eta Tau chapter of Phi Alpha, the Social Work Honor Society.

Tam J. Guy

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Tam J. Guy is a doctoral student in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Previously, Tam explored how planners can and should create sustainable places for everyone by researching equity impacts at the intersection of transportation, housing, and green infrastructure. Currently, Tam researches the public transit experiences of people who are transgender as part of a larger effort to understand the interactions between gender, public space, and public transportation.

Tam earned a BSBA in management and leadership from Portland State University while working as an analyst at a securities litigation firm and then completed dual masters degrees, MBA and MCMP, at the University of Utah in Business Administration (with emphases in strategy and innovation) and City + Metropolitan Planning (focused on smart growth, transportation, and urban design).

Hannah King

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Hannah is a doctoral student of transportation planning at UCLA. Prior to coming to UCLA, she spent several years in sea level rise and economic development planning at the state of Florida. Her current research interests center on active transportation, GIS, and transportation financing. She is being advised by Dr. Brian Taylor.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahrking

 

Ana Maria Duran Calisto

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Ana Maria Duran Calisto is an Ecuadorean architect, urbanist and environmental planner. She co-founded the design firm Estudio A0 in 2002 with her partner Jaskran (Jazz) Singh Kalirai in Quito, Ecuador, after receiving a Master of Architecture from PennDesign at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Liberal Arts Bachelor´s degree from Universidad San Francisco de Quito. The main pursuit of Estudio A0 is to develop environmentally responsible design and construction systems at all scales, by focusing on the possibilities of recycling, in situ clean energy production, water harvesting and reuse, high and low-tech hybrids, the investigation of local materials, and the reactivation of local ecologies. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Urban Planning at UCLA, under the advice of Professor Susanna Hecht. The focus of her research is the history of urbanization in the Amazon River basin.

Website: www.estudioa0.com
Contact: 424-361-8785