Miriam Greenberg, Director
Miriam Greenberg is Associate Professor of Sociology at UCSC. Her research explores the intersections of urban political economy, geography, and cultural studies, with particular interest in the dynamics at play in moments of “crisis.” She is the author of Branding New York: How a City in Crisis was Sold to the World (Routledge, 2008), and is at work on a collaborative and comparative book project with Tulane sociologist Kevin Fox Gotham on post-crisis redevelopment in New York City following 9/11 and New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
Rachel Brahinsky completed her doctorate in the UC Berkeley Geography department in 2012. Her PhD research was on the history of racial politics and redevelopment in Southeast San Francisco. She continues to research and write about race, gender and politics in the American city, with emphasis on California. Prior to her graduate work, Rachel was a journalist, writing about homelessness, city planning, and urban politics. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Living New Deal Project, based out of UC Berkeley. She situates questions about sustainability within the framework of race-class concerns in the city.
Michelle Glowa is a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at UCSC. Her work sits at the intersection of three broad bodies of work: critical urban geography,food studies (particularly the development of agri-food social movements), and theories of property and law. Currently she is studying food justice and urban agricultural production movements in California. Specifically, she focuses on the dynamics of land access and property rights, shifting land use and development, and the role of third sector organizations in food justice organizing.
Jen Gray-O’Connor is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at UCSC. Her research examines housing and new forms of urban inequality in the U.S. Specifically, she looks at how “new urbanist” and “smart growth” policy discourse frame public debates about issues of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, gentrification, and segregation.
Julie Guthman is a professor of social sciences at the University of California at Santa Cruz where she teaches courses primarily in global political economy, the politics of food and agriculture, and the body. Since receiving her PhD in 2000 in Geography from the University of California at Berkeley, she has published extensively on contemporary efforts to transform the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed, with a particular focus on voluntary food labels, community food security, farm-to-school programs, and the race and class politics of “alternative food.” Her first book, Agrarian Dreams: the Paradox of Organic Farming in California, (University of California, 2004), won the Frederick H. Buttel Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement from the Rural Sociological Society and the Donald Q. Innis Award from the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Her latest book, Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism (University of California, 2011) was awarded the James M. Blaut Innovative Publication Award from the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers and the 2012 Book Award from the Association for the Study of Food and Society.
Kristin Miller is a Sociology PhD student at UCSC, and has a background in journalism and Web and digital media. Her Master’s thesis was on green branding discourse and its socio-political effects. Kristin studies cities, ecology/ environmentalism, and social interactions with and through technology, and is incorporating documentary film in her research toolkit. Her current research focuses on the role of the Silicon Valley tech industry in reshaping the Bay Area.
Louise Mozingo is Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, a member of the Graduate Group in Urban Design of the College of Environmental Design, and Director of the American Studies program of the College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. A former Associate and senior landscape architect for Sasaki Associates, Prof. Mozingo joined department after a decade of professional practice. In 2009 she became the founding director of a research interdisciplinary team at the College of Environmental Design, the Center for Resource Efficient Communities (CREC) dedicated to supporting resource efficiency goals through environmental planning and urban design.
Tracy Perkins is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her master’s research in California’s San Joaquin Valley questioned common narratives of motherhood as the most important factor drawing women into environmental justice activism. This research also led to the creation of Voices from the Valley, which uses photography, theater, oral history, the news media and teaching resources to educate the public about environmental justice problems and advocacy. Tracy’s current research explores conflict and collaboration within social movements through a focus on California climate politics.
Mary Beth Pudup is a geographer teaching urban and regional political economy in the Community Studies department at UC Santa Cruz. At Mesa Refuge she is working on a book about the spectacular rise and demise of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG). During its heyday SLUG was the national non-profit exemplar in the field of community gardening and urban greening initiatives.
Kirsten Rudestam is a PhD student in the Sociology Department at UCSC. She is interested in the co-production of place-based meaning-making and environmental practices, specifically with respect to water. Her research focuses on the dynamics of contested land and water use practices within the Deschutes Basin of Central Oregon.
Simon Sadler is Professor of Architectural and Urban History in the Department of Design and Art History Graduate Program at the University of California, Davis. His publications include Archigram: Architecture without Architecture (MIT Press, 2005); Non-Plan: Essays on Freedom, Participation and Change in Modern Architecture and Urbanism (Architectural Press, 2000, co- editor, Jonathan Hughes); and The Situationist City (MIT Press, 1998). His research is centered on the ideological programs of design since the mid-twentieth century. Current projects include a book for MIT Press and supported by the Graham Foundation, entitled Alternative Architecture: a documentary history, which he is writing with Caroline Maniaque; and the study of design in California, including the convening the Californian section of the SAH Archipedia. He serves on the advisory boards of The Architect’s Newspaper and the Architectural Humanities Research Association, and is past Chancellor’s Fellow at UC Davis and Fellow of the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art.
Susie Smith is a documentary filmmaker with a focus on urban community, in particular the way that race and sexuality intersect with gentrification and sustainable cities. Her interest in urban neighborhoods and community began in while growing up in Washington, DC in the ’80s and ’90s. This interest has deepened since moving to San Francisco in 1999 and witnessing the complicated relationships between environmental activism, the arts, and the tech sector on the make-up of San Francisco’s Mission District. In 2012 she earned her MA in Social Documentation at UCSC, which culminated in the short film, People Live Here. The film explores the past, present, and possible futures of San Francisco’s Cesar Chavez St. and the people who inhabit it. She is currently working on extending the project to the web, as well as assistant producing and editing on the film Free For All about the San Francisco Public Library.
Julie Sze is an Associate Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She is also the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. Sze’s book, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice, won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, awarded annually to the best published book in American Studies. Sze’s research investigates environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender and power; and community health and activism. She has published on a wide range of topics such as energy and air pollution activism; toxicity; the cultural politics of the Hummer, and on environmental justice novels and cultural production.
Lewis Watts is a photographer, archivist/curator and professor of Art at UC Santa Cruz. His research and artwork centers primarily on cultural landscape. Focusing on African American communities in Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco, New Orleans and Harlem. He has been teaching photography at UCSC and UC Berkeley since 1978. He is co-author of the 2006 book, Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era, which features his restorations of salvaged photographs that portray musicians and patrons of the vibrant jazz scene in the Fillmore District during the 1940s and ’50s. He has a pending book, New Orleans Suite, co-written with Eric Porter, due to be published by UC Press in 2013. He is also working on an extended photographic project in Cuba.
