About

I’m an Associate Professor in the School of Business and Management at Queen Mary, University of London (For UK-types: my title is Reader). I’m also a Visiting Fellow at LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. Before joining QMUL, I held academic appointments the University of Southampton (Geography), and the London School of Economics (Geography); and before that in Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am a former Special Sworn Status Researcher at the US Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies. I did my PhD in Urban Planning at UCLA.

I study cities. I’m especially interested in the deep drivers of economic prosperity and inequality. Following those overarching interests, in my work I seek answers to questions like: how are technology and international trade reshaping the location and nature of work? What happens to service-sector workers when high-tech jobs comes to town? And how might immigrant-diverse cities affect workers’ productivity? In 2015, Stanford University Press published The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies: Lessons from San Francisco and Los Angeles, a book I wrote together with Michael Storper, Taner Osman and Naji Makarem.

For my work on Brexit and immobility, my co-authors and I won the Understanding Society Paper Prize. In 2016, my paper on the economic value of local social networks won the Urban Land Institute Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Economic Geography. Back in 2013, I also won an Early Career Award from the Regional Studies Association.

For the past few years I have served as an Associate Editor at Regional Studies; I’m also on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Economic Geography.

Cutting across my research interests, I’m interested in policy efforts to stimulate prosperity. I have advised governments and NGOs on issues of regional and international development, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and the World Bank.