People

ewing@arch.utah.edu

Reid Ewing, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor of City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah, Distinguished Chair for Resilient Places, long-time associate editor of the Journal of the American Planning Association, an associate editor of Cities, and a former columnist for Planning magazine, writing 71 bi-monthly columns on Research You Can Use. Earlier in his career, he was director of the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, associate professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, state representative from northwest Tucson, and analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.  He holds master’s degrees in Engineering and City Planning from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Transportation Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  A recent citation analysis found that Ewing’s work has been cited more than 42,000 times, making him the 3rd most highly cited among about 1,050 planning faculty in the U.S. and Canada, http://tomwsanchez.com/summer-2024-urban-planning-citation-update/.

simon.brewer@ess.utah.edu 

Simon Brewer, Ph.D., received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of London, and then moved to Aix-en-Provence, France to work on a PhD at the Universite Paul Cezanne. Having successfully defended this in 2002, he then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in several different locations in Europe. In around 2008, he moved to the University of Wyoming to start a new position, and to experience true culture shock. While there, he applied for and was fortunate enough to be offered a faculty position in the Geography Department at the University of Utah, where he is currently employed. His main research concerns ecosystem changes, and he also works on spatial and spatio-temporal analysis with a wide range of collaborators, including in the health sciences, hydrology, atmospheric sciences and urban planning. He spends quite a bit of time helping students navigate data science, machine learning and spatial statistics.

Grant.Hancock@utah.edu

Grant Hancock is a graduate student in the City and Metropolitan Planning program. He brings a unique blend of leadership, empathy, and practical experience to his education and future career, focusing on transportation planning and urban equity. His six years as a Marine Corps squad leader took him from California to DC, Hawaii, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia. This experience instilled a disciplined approach and a global perspective on community needs. With an undergraduate background in the humanities and years working alongside and building friendships with colleagues in retail, he developed a deep empathy and commitment to equity in urban planning. Grant hopes to build a career advancing equitable, accessible cities that prioritize public transit, active transportation, and affordable housing, incorporating best practices he observed during travels across Europe to enrich cities here. His ability to engage meaningfully with residents across diverse socioeconomic and political backgrounds shapes his approach, fostering inclusive urban solutions that respect and incorporate varied perspectives.

a.hong@utah.edu

Andy Hong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah. He leads the Healthy Aging and Resilient Places Lab where its mission is to create healthier and more resilient places for all people across the lifespan. Andy’s research examines the connection between the built environment, transportation, and human health, with a particular focus on social and environmental determinants. His goal is to work with local communities and stakeholders to develop an equitable and sustainable place-based approach to healthy aging and resilient places.

Hannah.Kalantari@utah.edu

Hannah Kalantari is a Ph.D., candidate in Metropolitan Planning, Policy, and Design at the University of Utah, where she also works as a research assistant under the supervision of Dr. Reid Ewing. Since August 2021, Hannah has been actively involved with the Metropolitan Research Center (MRC), contributing to various transportation research projects. Her work focuses on lane width and traffic safety, the transit-land use multiplier effect, transit ridership, streetcars, and micro mobility.

Justyna Kaniewska is a Ph.D., candidate in Metropolitan Planning, Policy and Design at the University of Utah. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College, holds an MBA degree from INSEAD and a master’s degree in City and Metropolitan Planning from University of Utah. She has an experience of working both as a business management consultant for McKinsey & Company and an independent developer. She is originally from Poland but worked on projects in Latvia, Czech Republic (Brno and Prague), Italy (Milan and Bologna), Singapore, France (Paris), Romania (Sibiu and Bucharest), and Israel (Tel Aviv). Her research focuses on gentrification, displacement and affordable housing in transit corridors. Her recently published papers include “Is transit-oriented development affordable for low- and moderate-income households?” and “Regional Policies, Practices, Tools, and Strategies to Implement Polycentric Development: Comparative Case Studies of Portland, Seattle, and Denver”. She has presented her research at the Transportation Board Annual Meeting, Utah Transportation Conference, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning annual conference. She conducted multiple projects for Utah Transit Authority, of which two most recent ones are “Extent of Gentrification, Displacement, and Transit and Affordable Housing Responses in Utah” and “Housing density and affordability near transit”.

alessandro.rigolon@utah.edu

Alessandro Rigolon is an Associate Professor in the Department of City of Metropolitan Planning and the Program Coordinator of the Master of City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah. The overarching goal of his research program is to examine how public agencies and nonprofits can use green space to achieve health equity goals while avoiding green gentrification. His research focuses on four main areas related to urban green space and environmental justice: (1) the policy determinants of (in)equity in green space provision, (2) the drivers and resistance to gentrification fostered by new green spaces (i.e., “green gentrification”), (3) the impact of green space on the well-being of communities experiencing marginalization, and (4) green space as a tool for equitable climate adaptation.

GavinSchmidt@rowlandhall.org

Gavin Schmidt is a local high school student interning at the MRC. He has a strong passion for urban planning and hopes to major in city design. Under Dr. Ewing, Gavin built the MRC's website and is responsible for it's upkeep. He also helps MRC students and faculty with various tasks. 

u1424030@utah.edu

Nawshin Tabassum is a Ph.D., student at the City and Metropolitan Planning Department of the University of Utah. She is interested in transportation planning and has been working as a Research Assistant at the Metropolitan Research Centre of the University of Utah. She is interested in climate change, active transportation, transit ridership, transit-oriented development (TOD), and social equity considerations in planning. She just received the Matt Riffkin Legacy Scholarship Award from WTS Northern Utah and got second-place in the Utah ITE Student Presentation contest. She enjoys attending conferences and meeting people working in the transportation industry.

Guang.Tian@utah.edu

Guang Tian, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of City and Metropolitan Planning and faculty member of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah. His interests and research focus on land use and transportation planning, travel behavior and built environment, sustainability and climate, urban data science and analytics (statistics, GIS, machine learning, AI, etc.). Before joining the University of Utah, Dr. Tian was an Associate Professor and coordinator of the GIS graduate certificate at the University of New Orleans, where he founded the Center for Equitable Transit-Oriented Communities (CETOC) – a U.S. Department of Transportation designated University Transportation Center. CETOC focused on preserving the environment by promoting transit access, multimodal infrastructure, compact and efficient land use patterns, as well as resilience and climate adaptation. Dr. Tian has published dozens of academic papers in peer-reviewed journals of transportation, planning, and geography.

justice.tuffour@utah.edu

Justice Tuffour is a Doctoral Researcher in Metropolitan Planning, Policy, and Design. He is serving as a full-time City Planner and GIS Manager for the City of Holladay – Local Government, offering practical planning solutions to help communities and neighborhoods. His academic background includes two Master’s degrees – a Master of Philosophy in Urban Planning and another in City and Metropolitan Planning, complemented by an Honorary Bachelor’s degree (First Class) in Land Use Planning. His research interests seek to shape dialogues around land use and transportation interaction modeling, spatial data analytics, planning policy and design for climate actions, emerging mobility technologies like EVs, shared and micro mobility, smart growth, and housing development strategies. With over 10 years of research and professional experience, his expertise spans local government work, urban and regional planning, geo-spatial mapping, quantitative analysis, spatial programming languages, urban design, and 3D software modeling. 

Faria.Afrin.Zinia@utah.edu

Faria Zinia is a Doctoral student and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Utah's Department of City and Metropolitan Planning. Her research interests encompass transportation equity, transit-oriented developments, transport economics, active transportation and shared mobility planning, transportation and land use interaction, and travel demand modeling. Her PhD research exclusively focuses on equity and justice issues in Transit Oriented Development (TOD). Her academic journey includes a Master's in City and Metropolitan Planning from the University of Utah, She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET), Bangladesh.