People

Leadership Team

Michael Black

Michael Black

Principal Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience

Ann-Margaret Esnard

Ann-Margaret Esnard

Interim Dean, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

Charlyn Green

Charlyn Green

Project Coordinator - Center for Urban Transformations, ADVANCE-IMPACT, and Sustainable Futures Lab

Robert Hobbins

Robert Hobbins

Clinical Assistant Professor of Management-Sustainability

David Iwaniec

David Iwaniec

Associate Professor of Sustainable Futures at the Urban Studies Institute

John Travis Marshall

John Travis Marshall

Associate Professor of Law

Lelani Mannetti

Lelani Mannetti

Assistant Professor at the Urban Studies Institute

Richard Milligan

Richard Milligan

Geosciences Assistant Professor and Graduate Director

Christine Stauber

Christine Stauber

Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Associate Chair of Population Health Sciences

Our 2024 Fellows

Fall 2024 Senior Fellows

Olivia Kirkland

Olivia Kirkland

Olivia Kirkland holds a B.S. in Geosciences, concentration in Environmental Geosciences, as well as the GIS certificate from Georgia State University. She is continuing her education at Georgia State University to pursue an M.S. in Geosciences, concentration in Geography. Her research and professional interests include environmental justice and equity, urban resilience, sustainability, climate change, and GIS. Olivia is a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship, having studied tourism’s impact on wastewater in Mexico. She is also a coordinator of the Sustainability Fellowship Program and the president of the student organization Geosciences Raising Opportunities for Women (GROW). Born and raised in Georgia, Olivia is passionate about serving communities in the Southeast.

Kathryn Saltzman

Kathryn Saltzman

Kathryn is a second-year College of Law student focused on the intersection of environmental law, planning-related law, education, and racial justice. She believes that community-led urban development policies are key to sustainable urban growth and to restoring communities that have been cast side or actively dismantled. Kathryn is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After earning her B.A. in English from Princeton University, she relocated to Selma, Alabama to teach middle school English and Social Studies. Kathryn co-founded an afterschool art program, Black Belt Youth Arts Collective, where students in rural Alabama towns engaged with their communities through various workshop series. In both the photography and architectural workshop series, Kathryn gained insight into how community development directly impacted her students’ lives and attitudes. Additionally, she was involved in piloting a restorative justice based disciplinary system in Selma City Schools to reduce the amount of students entering the school-to-prison pipeline. After moving to Atlanta to pursue her law degree, she gained experience advocating for individuals on the other end of that pipeline with the appeals unit for the Federal Defender Program. As a fellow, Kathryn is curious about how both gentrification and urban stagnation impact the school-to-prison pipeline and other inequitable educational outcomes, as well as how physical infrastructure impacts community development.

Fellows

Modesta Abacheng

Modesta Abacheng

Modesta Abacheng is a passionate advocate for global health equity with a diverse background spanning medicine and public health. She earned her Doctor of Medicine and Surgery degree from Shenyang Medical College in China. As a general practice physician, she gained valuable insights into healthcare challenges. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public health/Maternal and child health at Georgia State University. Her commitment to understanding the determinants of health led her to support sustainable development goals and became a fellow with the Georgia State University Urban Transformation Centre. Modesta’s focus on the intersections between health equity and social, economic, and environmental sustainability reflects her holistic approach to well-being. With a keen interest in the global health landscape, Modesta is poised to make meaningful contributions to the field, bridging the gap between Clinical medicine and Environmental health for a healthier world.

Dina Khadija Benn

Dina Khadija Benn

Khadija is a second year PhD student in Urban Studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography and a master’s degree in Geoinformatics. Much of her previous work focused on spatially-enabled projects involving planning, settlement development, informality, environmental management, and disaster risk management. Her research interests on the future of cities—and future cities—sit at the intersection of placemaking, sustainability, and equitable urban development. She serves as a graduate research assistant and is a member of the Sustainable Futures Lab at GSU’s Urban Studies Institute.

Megan Curry

Megan Curry

I graduated in 2021 from Georgia State University with a bachelor’s in environmental science. I am currently earning my Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Environmental Health. I have worked on research projects at Emory’s School of Public Health as a laboratory assistant and currently, I work as a graduate teaching assistant for GSU’s Department of Geosciences.
My enthusiasm for contributing to meaningful projects led me to a position as a fellow at the Center for Urban Transformations. I am eager to leverage my skills and knowledge to make a positive impact through impactful initiatives. I’m Looking forward to the exciting opportunities that lie ahead!
Courtney-Simone Graves

Courtney-Simone Graves

Courtney Simone is a second-year law student interested in the intersection of equitable urban development, sustainability, and law. Following the completion of her undergraduate degree she worked with municipal agencies in the City of Atlanta, as a communications professional. Immediately prior to law school she was a Fulbright Research Fellow studying social enterprises in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro. She is currently a graduate research assistant in the Center for Comparative Study of Metropolitan Growth and an Urban Fellow at the College of Law.

Grace Lin

Grace Lin

Grace, currently a third-year Ph.D. student at the Georgia State University School of Public Health, is deeply invested in environmental health, specifically focusing on ambient and household air pollution. Her research interests revolve around studying the impact of air pollution on human health, conducting air pollution source apportionment, refining air pollutant regulations, and developing corrected methodologies for low-cost optical particulate matter (PM) monitoring devices in comparison to FEM regulatory machines. Her aim is to gain a comprehensive understanding of their effectiveness in evaluating air quality.

In addition to her expertise in air pollution research, Grace holds a master’s degree in occupational safety and health. Her master’s thesis centered on exploring the thermal dynamics and decomposition of oxidizing chemicals in industrial processes.

Alice WS Price

Alice is a third-year College of Law student focused primarily on land-use and real estate transaction law. She received the CALI Excellence for the Future Award® inn Land-Use Law and Criminal Law. Her specific interest is in housing development and its intersection with gentrification and sustainability. She received her B.A. in Political Science from George Washington University. Originally from New York City, Alice has lived in Washington D.C., Portland, Oregon and now Atlanta, Georgia, which has instilled in her a love of cities and how they change and grow. Prior to law school, she had a career in event management and logistics for locally owned restaurant groups in Portland and Atlanta. This experience instilled both a love of hospitality as well as an appreciation for the decisions that small business owners face addressing sustainability concerns. 

Çağrı Tuzcuoğlu

Cagri is a first-year Ph.D. student and a graduate research assistant at the Urban Studies Institute of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. He is interested in sustainable urbanism, urban inequality, and neighborhood transformation initiatives. His dissertation research focuses on the impacts of green infrastructure projects on neighborhoods and their communities. Cagri comes from an interdisciplinary, multicultural background. He graduated with distinction from the M.Sc. in Urban Studies from Université Libre de Bruxelles and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, and holds a B.A. in Urban Social Management from Yokohama National University, Japan. Before his enrollment in the Ph.D. program, he worked in Kantar Public, a multicultural research agency, to administer research projects for the European Parliament; the public mobility administration of Brussels, where he developed a strategic plan that redesigned the streets of Brussels for sustainable modes of transportation; and the International Tropical Timber Organization, an inter-governmental organization that administers the sustainable harvesting of tropical timber. Currently, he continues his work to promote sustainability and equity in cities. He believes we can and should strive to improve transformative capacities to serve our communities and their needs.

Abigail Mary Waldron

Abigail Mary Waldron

Abby is a first-year master’s student in Public Policy concentrating on Urban Planning Policy. Her previous work has focused on collaborating with cross-disciplinary researchers in environmental activism, community outreach, engaging voters, and communications. She received her Bachelors in History from the University of Georgia in 2021. She spent two years working in various business, organizing, teaching, and communications roles and is excited to work towards sustainable changes in Atlanta with the Center.

Our Past Fellows

2023 Fellows

Abayomi Jones

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Abayomi Jones is a Board Certified Family Medicine Physician with over 15 years experience in the areas of primary care, community health and executive medicine, and holds a J.D, from Georgia State University College of Law. She has worked in the areas of health law, health policy and regulations, public health law, and urban transformation.

Abayomi works towards radical and necessary change resulting in positive forward-facing progress in urban places and spaces. Her interest in this work is the byproduct of personal and professional experiences that increased her curiosity of how urban cities, as epicenters of growth, change, and development, build resilience and support communities.

Abayomi is originally from East Palo Alto, California, a small city in the Northern California Bay Area that has drastically changed (for better and for worse in her opinion) as a result of expansive gentrification altering the racial and economic makeup of the entire region. In addition, through her work as a healthcare provider in inner-city neighborhoods across Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and the Bay Area, she again witnessed the side-effects of gentrification and urban “development.” Abayomi sees direct parallels between determinates of health and determinants of criminal, environmental, and social justice. With this perspective she began pursuit of a Juris Doctor and learned about the Center for Urban Transformations. As a current Fellow she hopes to broaden her understanding of how transdisciplinary work provides a framework to promote sustainable urban expansion towards transformative justice and environmental wellness.

Abayomi earned a B.S. from Spelman College, and a M.D. from Howard University College of Medicine.

Alex Muir

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Alex Muir received a Master’s of Public Affairs from Indiana University and worked for nearly a decade in the Midwest and Southeast before beginning at Georgia State University College of Law.

Her prior work included implementing community-based environmental stewardship programs for county governments and nonprofits, including initiating a grant-funded curbside composting program, development of local farmer’s markets, and community organizing for sustainable coastal development in Georgia.

Since beginning law school, Alex has clerked at the Office of the Solicitor for the United States Department of the Interior and the Natural Resources Section of the United States Department of Justice. Following graduation, she will begin her legal career at the Georgia Department of Law as an Honors Attorney in the General Litigation Division.

Angelique Willis

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Angelique Willis is a dual Ph.D student at Michigan State University. She holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Science in Geosciences and Geography at Georgia State University. Her research interests include the influence of geology on environmental exposures, well water quality, exposure assessment, risk assessment, environmental exposures and chronic disease epidemiology, and health geography. She is passionate about promoting public health initiatives and is dedicated to utilizing data analysis, mapping, and spatial analysis to positively impact public health and improve health outcomes for all community members.

Avery Evans

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Avery Evans holds an M.I.S. degree in Urban Studies from Georgia State University and works as a Grantmaking Associate at Park Pride. She also serves as the Transportation Infrastructure working group co-chair for the City of Atlanta’s Clean Energy Advisory Board. Avery was a Senior Fellow at the Center in addition to being a Fellow in the 2023 cohort.

Her research and professional interests include green space equity, urban food systems, and the intersection between resilient urban infrastructures and financial systems broadly. Following her completion of her undergraduate degree, Avery worked at as a teacher in an early learning center using the Reggio Emelia approach. She has also worked for various urban farms across Atlanta and was a 2022 session assistant to the Secretary of the Georgia Senate. Avery holds degrees in Sociology (B.A., University of Georgia) and International Affairs (B.A., University of Georgia).

Mackenzie Mitchell

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Mackenzie Mitchell is a Project Associate at Select Fulton, Fulton County Department of Economic Development. She holds an MIS degree in Urban Studies from Georgia State University and completed her Bachelor’s of Arts in Public Health from Agnes Scott College in December 2022. Her work focuses on issues in gentrification and affordable housing and their overlap with public health.

Mackenzie Mitchell was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Urban Transformations in addition to being part of the 2023 Fellowship Cohort.

Mary Catherine Artzer

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Mary Catherine is a first-year PhD student in Public Policy. Her current research interests focus on transportation policy, including how the built environment impacts people’s transportation decisions (or removes any decision capabilities) and how that intersects with sustainability, health outcomes, and equity. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Economics and Spanish from Rhodes College. Following her undergraduate degree, she worked at various consulting firms as a research analyst and project manager in the private sector. She currently serves as a graduate research assistant working on adaptive capacity in the face of multi-hazard events.

 

Noe Calderon Castro

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Noe Calderon Castro, originally from Metapan, El Salvador, has established himself as a proficient and dedicated professional in the field of geosciences. Noe holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental and Spatial Analysis from the University of North Georgia and a Master of Science degree in Geosciences, specializing in Geography, from Georgia State University. 
 
Noe serves as a GIS Operations Supervisor at Pike Engineering, a role in which he adeptly oversees critical GIS operations within the electrical utility sector. His expertise in geospatial technologies and keen interest in remote sensing technologies are indicative of his commitment to integrating innovative methodologies into the practical applications of geography and environmental analysis. Furthermore, Noe’s interest in land investment and urban development highlights his understanding of the significant impact geosciences have on economic and urban growth, positioning him as a forward-thinking professional in his field.

Pedro Ortiz

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Pedro Ortiz is a Climate Change Geospatial Analyst at the Atlanta Regional Commission. He holds an MIS in Urban Studies from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and a bachelors degree in Political Science from Georgia State University. Pedro previously worked in as an accountant for various logistics firms and on the Elections Team for Gwinnett County. 

His current research and professional interests include urban planning, transportation planning, climate resiliency and sustainability infrastructure, suburbanization, and GIS/spatial analysis.

Will Collins

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Will Collins is a NOAA Digital Coast Fellow. He obtained his JD at Georgia State University’s College of Law and focused primarily on environmental, coastal, and planning law. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Georgia College.

As a Transformations Fellow, Will partnered with the Georgia nonprofit One Hundred Miles, where he assisted with researching community-lead planning initiatives to aid Georgia’s coastal communities addressing economic stratification and climate vulnerability. He was also a Senior Fellow in addition to being a fellow in the 2023 cohort.

Prior to law school, Will was a public-school teacher in Savannah and maintains an interest in utilizing schools as hubs for community resilience. He also co-founded a non-profit, the Safety Valve Project, which offers pro bono representation to K-12 students facing expulsion. He has also worked with the Federal Highway Administration as a law fellow and with the Georgia Sea Grant researching various aspects of coastal law, from oyster farm permitting to blue carbon credits.