CRP Ph.D. Student Profiles
Ph.D. Students in Regional Planning
Maame Boatemaa
Maame Boatemaa is a scholar-practitioner whose interest in cities emerged at the juncture of her studies in urban political ecology, climate resiliency, and inequality in cities. As an Albert Gallatin Scholar at New York University, she critically interrogated how urban spaces transform in diverse social, economic, and political settings. She won several grants for research in Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal. She completed her graduate studies at the London School of Economics before moving to Seoul as a Henry Luce scholar. In South Korea, she spent the first half of her Luce year working at the University of Seoul and with a team of planners hired by the Paraguayan government to draw up a master plan for the flood-prone area of Bañado Sur. Following this project, Boatemaa joined the editing team at the JoongAng Daily, a New York Times-affiliated newspaper in Seoul. Currently, Boatemaa is interested in examining African cities' political ecology as a doctoral student in the CRP department.
Email: mab634@cornell.edu
Xinghan Chen
Xinghan Chen is a Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. His work sits at the intersection of computational urban science, urban morphology, and cultural geography, employing computer vision, machine learning, and multi-sourced urban data to analyze the morphological and perceptual diversity of cityscapes across cultural contexts. Currently, he focuses on the identification of large-scale urban form in Sub-Saharan Africa and its implications for spatial inequality and sustainable outcomes. He received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from Tongji University.
Email: xc568@cornell.edu
Malembe Dumont Copero
Malembe Dumont Copero is a four-year Ph.D. candidate in City and Regional Planning. Her dissertation examines how historic pre-, during-, and post-relocation processes shape and reshape embodied individual and community health experiences and impacts over time and across the spaces of relocation in communities along the Caño Martin Peña in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her research aims to point to the historical processes under public health discourses that displaced communities and created health inequities. It also aims to understand current community-based relocation efforts along Caño to avoid the continuation of displacement and improve community health. At the core of Dumont Copero's efforts is centering the embodied health experiences of relocated residents. Thus, part of her efforts are about unpacking methods for the production and circulation of knowledge on health equity. As the continuous iteration of disasters becomes the norm, this research can offer empirical knowledge to improve policies at the housing, climate, and health nexus. She has a bachelor's in Political Science from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, a master's in International Sustainable Development from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and a second master's in City and Regional Planning as a Fulbright fellow at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.
Email: md925@cornell.edu
Soojung Han
Soojung Han's primary academic focus is on mobility constraints experienced by the marginalized population group. She is interested in examining how the confluence of social and spatial factors influences the travel of each population group, particularly women, in low-income or ethnically minor households. On the same note, she also seeks to establish an integrated system of mobility with new and old transportation modes aligned to assist the travel needs of people situated within the local context. During her master's, Soojung explored the intersection of sociology, geography, and urban planning by studying the racialized, gendered, and classed conditions affecting the travel of marriage migrant women living in rural and urban regions of Korea. Prior to joining Cornell CRP, she worked in various locations, including Seoul and Beijing, for the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Ministry of Environment. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and English Language and Literature from Korea University and an M.C.P. from Seoul National University.
Email: sh935@cornell.edu
Goutham Raj Konda
Goutham is a Ph.D. student in the City and Regional Planning program at Cornell University. His research investigates the ongoing urbanization of agrarian property around big Indian cities like Hyderabad. He graduated with an M.Sc. in Urbanisation and Development from the London School of Economics (LSE) and with an MA in Urban Policy and Governance from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The UK government's Chevening scholarship supported his education at LSE. The Sahapedia-UNESCO fellowship supported his MA dissertation research at TISS. His previous professional experience involved working as a researcher at The Quantum Hub in Delhi and the Indian Institute of Technology in Hyderabad.
Email: gk465@cornell.edu
Ashley Kopetzky
Ashley Kopetzky is a Ph.D. candidate in City and Regional Planning. Her dissertation, Speculation and the Social Life of Vacancy in Seattle's Third Places, examines how vacancy is produced through speculation typologies, displacement, and uneven development, and how communities and ecologies respond through care, memory, and everyday actions. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Washington State University and a Master's in Architecture with a Technical Teaching Certificate from the University of Oregon. Her other professional work includes management in restaurants, wine education, and ceramics. When she is not studying, she enjoys cycling, yoga, fiber art, and reading novels written and translated by women into English (she encourages asking for a recommendation).
Email: alk278@cornell.edu
Yujin Hazel Lee
Yujin Hazel Lee is a Ph.D. student in Regional Science whose primary research area lies in the energy transition in the Global South, focusing on household agency, spatial analysis, and Ethiopia. She is interested in analyzing the socio-technical energy transition (STET) and how we can achieve a just and sustainable energy transition. Prior to joining Cornell, she worked with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), where she was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and has also worked with the World Bank as a short-term consultant. Her previous research has focused on gender inequality, such as gender-based conflict in the Rohingya refugee camps, and digital sex crimes in South Korea. She holds a M.I.S. and a B.A. degree from Ewha Womans University, South Korea, in development cooperation and international studies, respectively.
Email: yl3276@cornell.edu
Jorge Moshe Jiménez Montesinos
Jorge Moshe Jiménez Montesinos is a Ph.D. student in Regional Science at Cornell University, specializing in infrastructure and climate finance. His research develops innovative financial instruments to mobilize private capital for climate-resilient infrastructure, focusing on how contingent cash flows — such as avoided losses, reduced insurance premiums, and land value appreciation — can be quantified, securitized, and priced in municipal credit markets. His dissertation uses regional science, asset pricing, and modeling to bridge climate resilience and municipal finance. His research creates a market-based mechanism to translate resilience into measurable credit quality improvements, offering municipalities with financing options to help cities and regions invest in adaptation.
Before Cornell, Jorge served as Director of Financing at BANOBRAS, Mexico's Federal Infrastructure Development Bank, where he managed a multi-billion annual portfolio for 32 states and with over 2000 municipalities. He later joined the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy as a researcher, co-authoring a book chapter with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on valuing public private partnerships (PPPs), and developing quantitative models for infrastructure.
Jorge holds graduate degrees from Harvard Kennedy School (M.P.A., Mason Fellow), MIT Sloan (S.M. in Management, Fulbright Scholar), IE Business School (M.B.A.), as well as a B.A. in Economics from Universidad de las Américas–Puebla. He has advised state and local governments on infrastructure investments. Beyond academia, Jorge is active as a mentor with Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs.
Email: jj772@cornell.edu
Carlos Lopez Ortiz (M.R.P. '21)
Carlos Lopez Ortiz is a Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. His research interests lie at the intersection of planning, urban economics, and urban sociology. He is interested in understanding how poverty in cities affects people's development, with a particular interest in Latin American cities. Specifically, his research will explore how planners, in and outside traditional planning frameworks, can turn urban spaces into platforms that build people's capacities to improve their wellbeing. During his master's degree, Lopez Ortiz analyzed the relationship between income, residential segregation, and children's academic performance in metropolitan areas in the northeastern United States. He holds a master's degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree in Architecture from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.
Email: cal382@cornell.edu
Yousuf Mahid
Yousuf Mahid's research agenda focuses broadly on climate change adaptation, forest resource management, conservation, and institutional mechanisms for climate policy formulation. His work investigates the synergies between ecosystem-based adaptation and sustainable development solutions for climate-vulnerable communities, particularly in South Asia. Before joining the program, he worked as a program coordinator at the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) based in Bangladesh. While working at ICCCAD, he contributed to policy advocacy and assisted government officials, particularly the Planning and Finance Ministries of Bangladesh. Most notably, he facilitated the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission in conducting policy research and in producing several reports in order to contribute to the Five-Year Plan and Vision 2041 (national policy documents) of Bangladesh. Similarly, he provided his on-demand research support to the Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance — National Designated Authority to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). After his Ph.D., he aspires to become a faculty member and to conduct research on sustainability issues in developing countries. Mahid received his Bachelor of Urban and Regional Planning (B.URP) from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning (MUEP) from Arizona State University (ASU). In his spare time, he loves to read books and play table tennis.
Email: ym527@cornell.edu
Gauri Nagpal
Gauri Nagpal is a doctoral candidate in City and Regional Planning focusing on climate action, governance, and informality in the Global South. Her research explores how resilience strategies evolve when informality is recognized as a key framework shaping urban development. She also focuses on planning climate action among stakeholders such as development banks and multilateral institutions and their interactions with nation-states.
Before beginning her Ph.D. at Cornell, Gauri worked with International Programs at the Ford Foundation, where she tracked global grants and built relationships with high-level government officials and international organizations to scale the foundation's initiatives. She also consults with the World Bank Group's Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction, supporting risk-informed land-use planning to enhance city resilience.
Gauri has been involved in research with institutions such as the Bloomberg Center for Cities, the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School, Rio de Janeiro's Secretariat for Urbanism, Infrastructure and Housing, the Hungry Cities Partnership, and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. She is also the founder of an initiative providing affordable electric vehicles tailored for urban informal workers in Indian cities.
She holds dual master's degrees in Urban Planning and Design Studies from Harvard University and a fellowship in Urbanism from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
Email: gn247@cornell.edu
Malavika Narayan
Malavika Narayan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the spatiality of urban informal economies and how work gets reorganized in contexts of rapid urban transformation. She is interested in unpacking how informal sector workers mobilize the land and capital required for their labor and contribute to the creation of highly productive live-work neighborhoods that are integral to the formal city but remain in varying levels of tension with official plans and policies. Prior to this, Malavika has worked with Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), providing research and programmatic support to the Focal City Delhi project. During this time, she also co-coordinated the Main Bhi Dilli ("I, too, am Delhi") campaign, which aims to make urban planning in Delhi more inclusive and participatory. Narayan holds a master's in Political Science from the University of Delhi and was also an Urban Fellow at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru.
Email: mn533@cornell.edu
Manoel Pereira Neto
Manoel Pereira Neto is a Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, focusing on the intersection of housing, finance, real estate, and government. His research delves into the growing presence of institutional landlords and their impacts on neighborhood dynamics and households' access to affordable, secure, and stable housing. In his work, Manoel aims to bridge local planning processes with broader financial logics, offering fresh perspectives on how contemporary capitalism is spatially organized and manifested in cities.
Before joining Cornell for his doctoral studies, Manoel served as Head of Partnerships and Development at The Class Foundation, a Dutch organization dedicated to addressing Europe's student housing crisis. He also served as Associate Director at Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, where he developed research collaborations on modern urban challenges related to housing, mobility, public security, and climate change in Brazilian cities. Recently, he has held consulting and research appointments with the Climate City Finance and Leadership Alliance (CCFLA), the Bloomberg Center for Cities, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Chile's Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and the Mega-City Project.
Manoel holds a bachelor's degree in Administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, a master's in Urbanization and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a master's in Urban Planning from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD).
Email: mp2285@cornell.edu
Maya Porath
Maya Porath is a doctoral student researching housing, land use, and shared models of property ownership. Prior to her Ph.D. studies, she worked as an architectural designer in NYC and was the Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning (2022-23). Maya holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University and a Master's of Architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University.
Email: mp2237@cornell.edu
Sebastian Restrepo Rodriguez
Sebastian Restrepo Rodriguez likes to solve complex problems. His research interests are regional development and peacebuilding, focusing on the Global South, especially Latin America. Specifically, he is interested in generating development (social, environmental, and economic) in conflict or post-conflict regions from both a top-down and a bottom-up approach. In his research, he seeks to link the generation of policies and programs with funding sources. He has more than 15 years of experience designing and implementing regional development programs. In his last position at the National Department of Development in Colombia, he coordinated the execution of loan contracts with the World Bank, IDB, and the Government of the United Kingdom for the implementation of the multipurpose cadastre public policy to consolidate legal security in land tenure, contribute to fiscal strengthening, territorial development, and environmental sustainability. Restrepo Rodriguez holds a master's degree in Public Policy, a master's degree in Engineering, a professional specialization in Project Management, and a bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering.
Email: sr2323@cornell.edu
Hantao Sun (M.R.P. '23)
Born and raised in Hefei, China, Hantao Sun's research focuses on smaller cities that have historically been overlooked by orthodox urban knowledge. Specifically, he finds himself interested in the messiness of everyday minutiae in small towns, the clues of incompliance against hegemony from both beyond and within small towns' state apparatus, and the epistemological alternatives stemming from small towns towards planning otherwise. His research thus wanders somewhere at the borders of planning theories, human geography, political anthropology, and, hopefully, history in the future. Prior to his doctoral program, he completed his master's thesis on street vendors in Guanting Street, an informal food street in Hefei. He worked as a current planner at the Zoning Department in Macon, Georgia, where he encountered numerous daily chores at a small city's government agency. He holds a bachelor's degree in Land Resources Management from Renmin University of China and a master's in Regional Planning from Cornell University.
Email: hs724@cornell.edu
Shanasia Sylman
Shanasia Sylman is a Ph.D. student who is interested in the different ways marginalized communities manage and own open spaces in the U.S. For the last four years, Sylman has been working as an outdoor recreation planner for the National Park Service, assisting with park planning projects for national parks as well as local and community-driven outdoor recreation and conservation projects across the country. It became apparent how the process of creating and managing parks and open spaces does not account for systemic barriers to land access for marginalized communities, so Sylman's proposed research intends to take a critical look at how land protection, conservation, and stewardship practices are evolving to redress social injustices and create more equitable opportunities for land ownership and stewardship. She holds a master's in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and a bachelor's in Environmental Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Outside of the classroom, Sylman enjoys binging sitcom reruns, watching the occasional horror movie, attempting hobbies that never quite stick (blogging, photography, calligraphy), yoga, mindfulness, online shopping, and trying new recipes.
Email: sgs237@cornell.edu
Andrea Urbina
Andrea Urbina's primary academic interests include urban planning, housing policy, and governance, focusing on the Global South, especially Latin America. Before joining the Ph.D. program, she worked on a government research project on the impact of intensive residential densification in the restructuring of the city, focusing on the urban morphology and urban regulation in Santiago, Chile. She has researched urban renewal, promoting new ways to regenerate plots given to families in a housing policy established in the 1960s in Chile. She has also worked as an urban planner in the Planning Unit of two municipalities in Santiago. She holds a bachelor's degree in architecture and a master's degree in urban projects from the Catholic University of Chile (PUC). Her master's thesis analyzed Santiago's densification processes and their socio-political implications in the consequences of "unplanned" densification. Ultimately, she aims to analyze verticalization processes as a new renting trend in Latin American cities. In the Ph.D. program, she seeks to explain the emergence and implications of this new urban rental tendency and its effects on urban morphology, urban planning, and governance.
Email: aru8@cornell.edu
Zhuojun Wang (M.S. RS '20)
Zhuojun Wang's research interests are urban inequality and place-based policy. Currently, she focuses on analyzing the social and economic impacts of urban infrastructure and observing the interaction between residents and local policies in East Asian countries. She is interested in integrating geographic information systems (GIS) techniques, spatial analysis, econometric models, and machine learning methods to solve urban problems. Before joining the Ph.D. program at Cornell, she had experience as a Mayoral Fellow at the city of Chicago. She participated in various urban data analysis projects for the Shanghai and Guangxi provinces. She holds a master's degree in Regional Science from Cornell University, a bachelor's degree in Geomatics from the University of Waterloo, and a bachelor's degree in GIS from Wuhan University.
Email: zw553@cornell.edu
Hassan Yakubu
Hassan Yakubu is a trained architect and spatial planner whose research broadly seeks to bridge these spatial scales. Specifically, his work lies at the intersection of infrastructure planning, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and climate urbanism. Through this, Yakubu is developing a line of research exploring spatial patterns of urban energy consumption in order to inform the development of sustainable and resilient African cities. His earlier research engaged with sustainability within slum resettlement programs, exploring and extending the "site and services" approach at Old Fadama at the heart of Accra, Ghana. Thereafter, he investigated financing mechanisms of urban development schemes via public-private partnerships, combining a critical policy transfer and a new public management lens. In practice, Yakubu has undertaken architecture consultancies with leading practices in Rabat and Accra on a number of residential, commercial, and public projects. He holds an M.Phil. in Planning from the University of Cambridge, U.K., where he was a Commonwealth Shared Scholar, and an Architecture Diploma from the National School of Architecture-Rabat, Morocco, where he was a Ghana-Morocco Governments' Scholar. As an academic, he worked as an analyst and research coordinator. He later led the Pedagogical Affairs Unit at the School of Architecture, Planning, and Design, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco.
Email: hy597@cornell.edu
Zijing Zhao
Zijing Zhao is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research lies in the intersection of urban planning and public policy, with a focus on how planners and policymakers muddle through the new political economy of place. She is particularly interested in urban and regional governance, economic development planning, and how local governments respond to complex intergovernmental dynamics. She’s also interested in using big data and spatial modeling to solve urban problems. Her previous research includes analyzing functional and institutional integration under China’s state-orchestrated regional cooperation strategy in the Yangtze-River Delta, evaluating the American Rescue Plan Act to understand local governments’ response to the federal initiatives, and studying intergenerational income and social mobility to understand how place shapes individual outcomes. Before joining Cornell, Zijing earned a bachelor's degree from Zhejiang University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.
Email: zz925@cornell.edu
