Visiting Scholars
Learn more about the individuals who are providing their valuable research and insights into the topics of town planning, urban development and land management.
Professor Mark Stephens
Mark Stephens is the Ian Mactaggart Chair in Land, Property & Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow and Visiting Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Design, The University of Sydney. His research interests include the study of housing systems and their relationship with wider social and economic institutions. Much of his research utilises international comparisons, and he led the EU’s Study on Housing and Exclusion.
He is passionate about enhancing the relationship between academic research and expertise, and policy making, and has held a number of government advisory roles. He is currently lead editor of the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual UK Housing Review which has been described as the housing sector’s “Bible” and "essential encyclopaedia”.
Dr Josh Ryan-Collins
Dr Ryan-Collins is Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London. Before joining IIPP, Josh was Senior Economist at the New Economics Foundation, one of the UK’s leading think tanks.
Josh is the author of two co-authored books: Where Does Money Come From? and Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing which was featured in the Financial Times’s economics editor Martin Wolf’s top summer reads of 2017. His new book Why can’t you afford a home will be released in Australia in November this year.
Dr David E Jacobs
Dr Jacobs, PhD, CIH is currently Chief Scientist at the National Center for Healthy Housing, where he directs the US Collaborating Center for Healthy Housing Research and Training for the World Health Organization. He was a contributing author to the recently released Guidelines on Housing and Health from the World Health Organization. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division).
He helped launch the Health Homes Initiative in the US in 1999 with a report to Congress. Dr. Jacobs has led research related to childhood lead poisoning prevention, lead exposure assessment and mitigation, healthy housing, asthma, green building design and policy development. He also ran the Healthy Housing program in the Housing and Urban Development Department for about ten years. He has over 95 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, most of which are available here.
Professor John Landis
Professor Landis is Crossways Professor and chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania where he teaches and conducts research in the areas of housing and urban development policy and practice. He is currently on sabbatical at the University of Sydney working on a book on "35 Global Planning Success Stories". Professor Landis holds a Bachelor's Degree from MIT and a PhD in City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Rhode Island, Georgia Tech, and UC Berkeley.