Ann-Margaret Esnard

In the last five years, Dr. Esnard;s research has focused on post-disaster recovery planning and vulnerability assessments. She served as the Principal Investigator for a 3 year National Science Foundation grant from 2007-2010 to study hurricane-related population displacement, housing and land development policy issues in eight coastal states (North Carolina to Texas) Five journal articles have been published on topics that include: disaster-induced displacement process and dilemmas, development of a displacement risk index, policy learning, and housing recovery planning . After the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, Dr. Esnard served as the Principal Investigator (from 2010-2011) for another National Science Foundation grant to examine the role of South Florida agencies, organizations and the Haitian diaspora in assisting earthquake survivors that came to the region. Research findings have been published in three papers that are published in academic journals and conference proceedings. Spinoff research initiatives from these two projects are in progress. Other ongoing collaborative research is funded by the United States Geological Survey' s Western Geographic Science Center for development of a Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Framework for South Florida, and related quality of life indicators , and shore-zone planning for sea level rise.

Asli Ceylan Oner

Dr. Oner is currently working on a Globalization and World Cities research project titled Measuring the US Space Economy under Conditions of Contemporary Globalization (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/projects.html). The project is based on a data collection in thirty global cities in terms of transnational business activity and linkages with the US economy. Other current research projects include an analysis of online global knowledge networks in urban and regional planning and examining distinctive spatial patterns in metropolitan areas that create metropolitan form.

Yanmei Li

Dr. Li is currently collaborating with Dr. Esnard from the School of Urban and Regional Planning and Dr. Sapat from the School of Public Administration in a NSF project to explore displacement caused by catastrophic hurricanes. Her role in this project is to work on disaster housing policy learning, determinants of local community housing damage caused by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, and housing vulnerability indices for the study area. She is also working on papers related to residential mortgage foreclosure by examining the spatial patterns of foreclosure, impacts of foreclosure, and how the geographic distribution of different types of loans contributes to foreclosure.

Diana Mitsova

Dr. Mitsova is currently involved in a study of the impact of sea level rise on Broward County coastline with a focus on flood damage analysis under different scenarios. She is also a Co-Principal Investigator of a recently received research grant from the FAU Environmental Sciences Everglades Fellowship Initiative. The research project is titled “Seasonal Flushing of Oil and Grease from Urban Runoff to the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve” and will fully fund one master’s level student for two years. Dr. Mitsova has a long-standing interest in land cover change simulation and environmental modeling. She is also working on issues related to the impact of globalization and global environmental change as combined stressors for coastal urban communities. She recently participated in developing a grant proposal aimed at designing collaborative e-learning tools focusing on urban issues related to climate change, metroregions and integrative environmental planning. The proposed project involves four universities, two from the U.S. and two from the EU.

Kasama Polakit

Dr. Polakit’s research explores various dimensions of “place”, from phenomenology to regulatory, with particular attention paid to the formation of place identity.  She is now looking at the process-product of “place making” through “interdisciplinary”, “multi-scalar”, and urban “character”.