Meet Professor Loretta Lees, Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities
On Monday, September 19 from 4 – 6 PM, the BU Initiative on Cities is hosting an event to welcome Professor Loretta Lees, the new Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities, to Boston University! The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology and the Center for Innovation in Social Science. Professor Lees will speak about cities and the challenges they face, followed by a discussion alongside BU urban experts including Professor of Sociology Japonica Brown-Saracino and Associate Professor of Political Science Katherine Levine Einstein. A reception will follow the presentations. To learn more and register for the event, see here.
Loretta Lees is an urban geographer and urbanist who is internationally known for her research on gentrification, urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. Before moving to Boston University in September 2022 to serve as Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities, she was professor of Human Geography at Leicester University and before that King’s College London in the UK. Loretta was elected as a fellow of Academia Europaea (MAE) in 2022; the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA) 2018, Academy of Social Science (FAcSS) 2013, and Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA) 2012.
Loretta has published 14 books, with 2 books in press (The Planetary Gentrification Reader, Routledge; Concise Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Edward Elgar). Her most recent book, co-authored with Elanor Warwick (architect and urban designer at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership), Defensible Space: mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice (2022), critically examines the concept of ‘defensible space’ which has been influential in crime prevention on housing estates in the UK, the USA, and beyond; evaluating its movement/mobility/mobilisation from the US to the UK and into English housing policy and practice.
Professor Lees has long been committed to work beyond the academy. She was Chair of the London Housing Panel 2020-22 working with the Mayor of London and Trust for London. She is a committed scholar-activist who has worked alongside local residents, elected officials, planners, and activists to build knowledge networks to advance more just housing and urban regeneration policies. She was awarded the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Professor Lees discuss her research and her vision for IOC!