Dr. Jan Whittington is Associate Professor of the Department of Urban Design and Planning, at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research applies transaction cost economic theory to networked infrastructures, such as transportation, water, and communications systems, to internalize factors historically treated as external to transactions. Her publications include methodologies for greenhouse gas mitigation and resilience through capital investment planning, examination of the efficiency of public-private contractual arrangements for infrastructure, and the evaluation of online transactions for efficiency, security, and privacy. At the University of Washington, she is the Director of the Urban Infrastructure Lab, Associate Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, and Affiliate Faculty at the Tech Policy Lab. She teaches infrastructure planning and finance, public finance, infrastructure mega-projects, science for environmental policy, planning for water, and land use planning. Her PhD (2008) is in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was advised by economic Nobel laureate Oliver Williamson. Prior to her academic career, she spent 10 years with infrastructure giant Bechtel Corporation, as a strategic planner and environmental scientist. She holds bachelor degrees in Biology and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1987). Her master’s degree is in City and Regional Planning, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (1993).
Research Theme: Policy & Law
Research aimed at influencing or assisting policymakers, as well as scholarship on laws and policy related to the built environment
Qing Shen
Qing Shen is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair and Director of the University of Washington Graduate School’s Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and Planning. He holds a PhD in City and Regional Planning from University of California, Berkeley. Professor Shen’s primary areas of interest are urban economics and metropolitan transportation planning and policy. Author of numerous scholarly publications, he has developed methodological frameworks for analyzing urban spatial structure, examined the social and environmental consequences of automobile-oriented metropolitan development, and investigated the differential impacts of information and communication technologies (ICT) on various population groups. A primary focus of his current research is on the opportunities and challenges created by mobile ICT-enabled new mobility services. Exploring the paths toward more efficient, equitable, and environmentally responsible urban transportation, he is working with colleagues and graduate students to conduct innovative research on travel behavior and its connections with shared mobility services, built environments, and transportation demand management policies.
Professor Shen’s scholarly work has gained wide recognitions, which include a Horwood Critique Prize given by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), an Emerging Scholar Paper Award in spatial analysis and modeling specialty given by the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a Chester Rapkin Award given by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), and a Best Paper Award by the World Society for Transportation and Land Use Research (WSTLUR). A highly active member of the academic community, he has served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association (since 2000; Associate Editor since 2020) and the Journal of Planning Education and Research (since 2006).
Professor Shen was educated in China (Zhejiang University) and Canada (University of British Columbia) before coming to the United States. He started his academic career at MIT as an assistant professor in 1993 and was promoted to associate professor in 1999. That was followed by his tenured faculty appointment in 2000 at the University of Maryland, College Park where he also served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He joined the University of Washington as Professor and Department Chair in 2009. In addition, he has served as a visiting professor at several leading universities in China. In 2005, he was appointed by the President of Nanjing University as the first holder of Siyuan Chair Professorship, an endowed visiting position. In 2009, he was appointed as a visiting Tongji Chair Professor at Tongji University. In 2014, he was appointed by the President of Southwest Jiaotong University as the Oversea Dean of the School of Architecture and Design, a visiting advisory position. He was a primary founder and former Chairman of the International Association for China Planning (IACP).
Branden Born
Let’s assume that planning can be roughly divided into two general lines of thought: consideration of the physical and built environment, and the societal aspects of the processes of human development. Within that artificial binary, Born’s interests lie in the societal more than the physical.
While he considers himself a bit of a land use planner, he is really focused on how we make decisions as a collective society. Thus, he is interested in the planning process: who is at the table, who is not, and why; as well as who benefits and who suffers from decisions that planners make. In that context, he studies planning processes and regional governance and specifically focuses on the food system as a lens by which we can examine and understand broader conditions. Questions of state-community interaction, the changing role of the state, democracy, and the influence of corporatism and neoliberalism at all scales of development permeate his thinking.
With interests that span theory and practice, he tries to develop or participate in opportunities for creative governance. He sits on the Puget Sound Regional Council’s Regional Food Policy Council, an organization he helped found. He is also a founding member of the Washington State Food System Roundtable. He has collaborated with researchers, community members, and local governments on several healthy community initiatives in King County, Washington. As example of the professional theory-practice tension that he enjoys, he co-authored the American Planning Association’s Planning Advisory Service Report on Planning for Community and Regional Food Systems, and wrote with his colleague, Mark Purcell, a well-known piece in the Journal of Planning Education and Research critiquing the unquestioning emphasis of localism in early food system research and practice.
He also maintains a research and class connection to Oaxaca, Mexico, where he tries to visit with students for a class on Food Sovereignty and the Roots of Migration each summer.
Most recently, he helped start and currently co-directs the University of Washington’s Livable City Year program, a community engagement project that pairs the university and a community for an academic year. In that time, about 20 classes from across the schools and departments at the university work on projects proposed by the city to serve the broad concepts of livability and sustainability.