Dear GCI followers,
Great Cities Institute is pleased to announce the 2014-2015 GCI Faculty Scholars. A criterion for judging the proposals was the extent to which they address UIC and GCI’s Great Cities Commitment to connect scholarship and the quality of life in cities and metropolitan regions.
Since 1995, the Institute has appointed 156 Faculty Scholars from over 34 different departments and units at UIC. The GCI Faculty Scholars Program provides awardees the opportunity to conduct research that contributes to their professional development, enriches their respective academic disciplines and leads to changes in policy and professional practice outside the academy.
The 2014-2015 GCI Faculty Scholars include:
Ning Ai, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Policy
Isabel Cruz, Professor, Department of Computer Science
“Feasibility & Efficiency Analysis of Neighborhood-Based Sustainable Food Waste Management”
Lynette Jackson, Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
“New African Diaspora in Chicago: Memories, Maps, and Communities”
Nadine Naber, Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies & Asian American Studies Program
“Ending Violence against Arab Women: Transnational Approaches across Four Cities (Cairo, Beirut, Chicago, Detroit)”
Laurie Schaffner, Associate Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies & Department of Sociology
“Chicago Youth in the Survival Sex Economy: Sexualities, Poverty, Race, and the Law”
The 2014-2015 Great Cities Institute Faculty Scholar Competition was guided by GCI’s commitment to encourage collaborative, cross-disciplinary research on topics that affect the quality of life of people living in Chicago, its metropolitan region, and other great cities and urban regions around the world. Priority was given to proposals that have a high potential to promote synergy among scholars working on a topic related to UIC and GCI’s urban missions, create enduring collaborative relationships, and attract funding from outside the university.
The 2013-2014 Great Cities Institute Faculty Scholars were:
Tarini Bedi, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology
“Taxis, Transport and Urban Infrastructures in Mumbai and Singapore”
Andy Clarno, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
“The Empire’s New Walls: The Politics of Security in Johannesburg and Jerusalem”
During the year, Professor Clarno worked on his book manuscript titled, “The Empire’s New Walls”, through which he explores political transition in a context of neoliberal restructuring in South Africa and Palestine/Israel and the creation of walled enclosures that have come to define the urban landscapes of Johannesburg and Jerusalem. Tarini Bedi, continued her research on “Violence, Politics, and Everyday Insurgencies in Peri-Urban Mumbai” which is part of two larger book projects in which she explores gendered patronage politics and the anthropology of infrastructure development. Both Professors Clarno and Bedi are participants in GCI’s Cities across the Globe Initiative.
In the 2014-15 academic year GCI will incorporate new GCI Faculty Scholars into its Cities across the Globe Initiative including an emphasis on women. The upcoming GCI Faculty scholars may also participate in GCI’s employment and economic development cluster as well as the forthcoming energy, environment and climate change cluster.
Sincerely,
Teresa Córdova
Director
