Moira Zellner Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor
Moira Zellner joins the Urban Planning & Policy Program as an Assistant Professor in January of 2006. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Moira earned her undergraduate degree in ecology at the Centro de Altos Estudios en Ciencias Exactas, and pursued graduate studies in urban and regional planning and in complex systems at the University of Michigan. Before coming to the US, she worked in Argentina as a consultant on environmental issues for local and international environmental engineering firms and for the undersecretary of Environment in the City of Buenos Aires, in projects related to domestic and hazardous waste management, river remediation, industrial pollution control, and environmental impact assessments. She also participated in interdisciplinary and international research projects of urban air pollution and of the spread of tuberculosis through public transportation.
In the US, her professional work includes greenway development and river restoration projects in Miami Beach and in California, and transportation surveys. Her current research involves assessing the environmental impacts of urbanization, and exploring how to enhance the sustainability and
resilience of urban areas. The focus is on how specific policy and
behavioral changes can effectively address complex environmental
problems, in which decentralized decisions result in regional land-use
and consumption patterns that negatively affect resource availability
and quality. Her research also examines the applicability of complexity
theory and complexity-based models to policy exploration and social
learning.
1995 - Degree in Biology (Specialization in Ecology), Centro de Altos Estudios en Ciencias Exactas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2000 - Master in Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
2003 - Certificate in Complex Systems, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
2005 - PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dissertation: "Generating Policies for Sustainable Water Use in Complex Scenarios: An Integrated Land-Use and Water-Use Model of Monroe County, Michigan." Committee: Scott D. Campbell, Daniel G. Brown, Rick L. Riolo, John D. Nystuen.
Courses
UPP 537: Economic and Environmental Planning
UPP 554: Environmental Planning
UPP 555/463: Complexity-based Modeling for Planning and Policy
Publications
Zellner, M. L.; Riolo, R.; Rand. W.; Brown, D. G.; Page, S. E.;
Fernandez, L. E.; Forthcoming. “The Problem with Zoning: Nonlinear
Effects of Interactions between Location Preferences and Externalities
on Land Use and Utility.” Environment and Planning B.
Zellner, M. L.; Page, S. E.; Rand, W.; Brown, D. G.; Robinson, D. T.;
Nassauer, J.; Low, B.; 2009. "The Emergence of Zoning Games in Exurban
Jurisdictions." Land Use Policy 26 (2009): 356-367.
Lu, Y.; Kawamura, K.; Zellner, M. L.; 2008. "Exploring the Influence
of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling."
Journal of the Transportation Research Record (2082): 132-40.
Zellner, M. L.; 2008. “Embracing Complexity and Uncertainty: The
Potential of Agent-Based Modeling for Environmental Planning and
Policy.” Planning Theory and Practice 9 (4): 437-457.
Zellner, M. L.; Theis, T. L.; Karunanithi, A. T.; Garmestani, A. S.;
Cabezas, H.; 2008. “A New Framework for Urban Sustainability
Assessments: Linking Complexity, Information and Policy.” Computers,
Environment and Urban Systems, Special Issue on Geocomputation: Modeling with Spatial Agents 32 (6): 474-488.
Brown, D.G.; Robinson, D.T., An, L.; Nassauer, J. I.; Zellner, M. L;
Rand, W.; Riolo, R.; Page, S. E.; Low, B.; Wang, Z.; 2008. “Exurbia from
the bottom-up: Confronting empirical challenges to characterizing a
complex system.” Geoforum 39 (2): 805-818.
Zellner, M. L.; 2007. “Generating Policies for Sustainable Water Use
in Complex Scenarios: An Integrated Land-Use and Water-Use Model of
Monroe County, Michigan.” Environment and Planning B, Planning and
Design 34 (4): 664-686.
Brown, D. G.; Page, S. E.; Riolo, R.; Zellner, M. L.; Rand. W.; 2005.
“Path dependence and the validation of agent-based spatial models of
land use.” International Journal of Geographical Information Science,
Special Issue on Land Use Dynamics 19 (2): 153-174.
Contact
mzellner@uic.edu
Room 227
312-996-2149