July 10, 2006

UIC Names New Urban Planning Program Director

Martin Jaffe, associate professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been appointed director of the urban planning and policy program, pending board approval. He succeeds Curt Winkle, associate professor of urban planning and policy, who served as director for three years. Winkle will return to
the faculty.

Jaffe's teaching and research specialties are land use and environmental law and planning. His current research examines how the growing Chicago region can best meet its future needs for water, despite constraints on Lake Michigan water and groundwater.

"I'm honored to have been appointed to one of the best accredited planning programs in the United States," Jaffe said. "I'm committed to maintaining our program's demographic diversity and the most challenging courses possible in our master's and doctoral programs. I'm also looking forward to working with Dean Robin Hambleton and Professor Michael Pagano, director of UIC's Public Administration Program, in establishing the new undergraduate program in urban planning and public affairs."

Jaffe, who also serves as coastal business and environment specialist for the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program, works on environmental management issues with agencies in northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Architecture and Planning Research and the Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law. Before joining UIC in 1985, Jaffe was a research program administrator and senior research associate for the American Planning Association. He also worked in local and regional planning in New York and
Massachusetts.

Jaffe earned a law degree from Wayne State University and a master's degree in law from DePaul University.

UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world. For more information about UIC, visit www.uic.edu

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