Student Profiles

Ayesha Ali

Education:
2019-present PhD Global Urban Studies, Rutgers, Newark University
2015-2017 Master of Education, Educational Leadership and Policy
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
• Strands: Leadership, change, social diversity, and policy
• Methods: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
2008-2009 Bachelor of Education
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
• Primary and junior divisions
• Additional qualifications: Teaching English as a Second Language
2004-2008 Bachelor of Science (Honors), Psychology, University of Toronto, Canada

Anticipated Graduation: 2027

Research Interests: urban education, educational policies in K-12 and higher education, social mobility, social stratification, and immigrant studies.

Carla De Agostini

Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations; University of Rome La Sapienza & Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris
Interdisciplinary Master’s degree in Innovation and Research for Sustainable Futures (Futuro Vegetale); University of Florence
Erasmus Mundus Joint MSc in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management (MESPOM); Central European University, University of the Aegean & Lund University

Bio:
Carla is an interdisciplinary researcher and practitioner focused on place-based ecological knowledge, socio-ecological systems, and urban governance. Her professional experience across European institutions and the FAO has focused on international cooperation on climate adaptation, natural resource management, and community-led landscape restoration, linking ecosystem-based approaches with local livelihoods. She has a particular interest in traditional and local knowledge, and in sharing ecological knowledge through diverse forms, including collaborative, arts-based practices. At GUS, her work turns to urban rivers as socio-ecological systems, examining how different river governance and everyday socio-environmental practices can help create more resilient, adaptive, and equitable cities.

Nooreen Fatima

Education:
Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch), Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
Master of Architecture (M.Arch) in Urban Design, School of Planning and Architecture Delhi
Fellow, Urban Fellows Programme, Indian Institute for Human Settlements Bangalore

Bio:
Nooreen is a Ph.D. student with the Global Urban Studies Program at the School of Arts and Sciences Newark. She completed her Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and Master of Architecture (M.Arch) in Urban Design from School of Planning and Architecture Delhi. She has also been a fellow under Urban Fellows Programme at Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore. She has worked in several distinguished planning, design, and policy research projects in the past and also served as an Adjunct faculty at the School of Global Affairs, Ambedkar University Delhi.

Her research lies at the intersection of infrastructure, citizenship, and governance in Delhi’s resettlement colonies. Her research explores socio-technical responses, everyday negotiations, and make-shift spatial arrangements by the displaced urban residents to create ‘home’, access infrastructure, and make claims to citizenship in Delhi’s resettlement colonies through visual ethnography. Her scholarly interests also include spatial injustice, politics of space, politics from below, informal urbanism, and the Global south.

Research Interests: Infrastructural Citizenship, Make-shift urbanism, Informal Urbanism, Spatial injustice, Visual ethnography, Politics from below, Planning and Politics in the global South

Anticipated Graduation: 2027

Sajedeh Goudarzi

Education:
MA, Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
MA, Urban Management, Allameh Tabataba’i University

Bio:
Sajedeh is a PhD student of Global Urban Studies. She holds a master’s degree in diplomacy and international relations and another master’s degree in urban management. Her research is centered on political theory, contentious politics, religion, and gender in the Middle East. She aims at applying urbanity as a lens to question basic concepts in contentious politics through critical theory epistemologies.

She is also interested in early Islamic philosophy and has taken multiple courses on the intellectual history of political thought around authority and gender in Shia Islam.

Mustafa Hoshmand

Education:
Bachelor of Science in Economics: Yildiz Technical University
Master of Science in Quantitative Economics: University of Glasgow

Bio:
Mustafa Hoshmand, originally from Afghanistan, is a doctoral student in the Global Urban Studies program whose interests lie at the intersection of migration studies, forced displacement, and development. He received his master’s degree in Quantitative Economics from the University of Glasgow. He has worked as Turkey-Country Research Coordinator in the “Refugee-Led Organizations in The Middle East” project conducted by the Centre for Lebanese Studies in Association with Carleton University and the University of Oxford. Drawing on his background in economics and experience working on refugees-related topics, he focuses on the experiences of refugees and migrants, their meaningful participation, mobilization, and durable solutions. His research combines quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as fieldwork in a variety of settings. He is passionate about data-driven research and creating meaningful solutions to the global challenges of migration and forced displacement.

Research Interests: Migration studies, forced displacement, community organization, development

Joshua McWhirter

Bio:
Joshua McWhirter is a researcher and educator focused on longitudinal relationships between public policy, finance, the built environment, ecology, and everyday life. Currently, he is a PhD student in the Joint Program in Urban Systems at Rutgers University-Newark and New Jersey Institute of Technology, where his work examines the economic and material “lifecycles” of commercial buildings alongside changing political and cultural landscapes of urban business districts in the United States since the late-twentieth century. Previously, he was the managing editor for Urban Omnibus, The Architectural League of New York’s digital publication examining the collective work of citymaking, as well as a contributing editor for Failed Architecture.

Connor Mapes

Education:
MRes in Human Geography, University of Glasgow, 2023
BS in Environmental Science and Policy, University of South Florida, 2021

Bio:
Connor is a first-year PhD student in the Global Urban Studies program at Rutgers-Newark. He attended the University of South Florida as an undergraduate and studied Environmental Science and GIS. After graduating with his Bachelor of Science, Connor worked on developing the Global Mosquito Observations Dashboard in collaboration with the Wilson Center and the University of South Florida. Connor then studied Human Geography at the University of Glasgow, and wrote his MRes dissertation about gentrification, authenticity, and nostalgia in Glasgow, Scotland. Prior to starting his PhD, Connor worked for a harm reduction outreach project in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Research Interests: Urban geography, gentrification, memory, alienation, housing justice

Hyacinth Miller

Education:
B.A. Political Science and Africana Studies, Brooklyn College, CUNY
M.A.  Political Science with a concentration in Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
Ph.D. Global Urban Studies (in progress), Rutgers University

Bio:
Hyacinth Miller is a PhD student in the joint Global Urban Studies/Urban Systems program. Her dissertation will explore Black women’s local, state, and federal candidate emergence in New Jersey. She has presented conference papers on subjects including West Indians in elected office in New Jersey and the U.S., the Haitian Diaspora in the U.S., and on multiple citizenship policies in the Caribbean. Hyacinth is also an Assistant Teaching Professor with Rutgers in the departments of Africana Studies and Political Science [Newark campus] and a Lecturer in Latino and Caribbean Studies [New Brunswick campus]. Prior to joining Rutgers, she worked in the philanthropic, government and private sectors.

Research Interests: Black women in elected leadership in the U.S. and globally and Black immigrant political incorporation in global cities

Anticipated Graduation: 2027

Ehsan Lotfi Mokri

Bio:
Ehsan was born and raised in Sardasht, Kurdistan, Iran. Based upon his lived experience, he was drawn to study sociology to pursue his questions regarding ethnicity. However, as he studied sociology, his research drew him to more interdisciplinary methods; accordingly, he earned an MA in Cultural Studies at Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran. His master’s dissertation on the Social Life of Mobile Phone in Sardasht, allowed him to address ethnicity, everyday life, material culture, diaspora, and the interconnection of the digital and material world.

Based upon his own experiences, on the one hand, and encountering a significant number of Iranian Kurdish refugees living in the UK/Europe, on the other, he plans to center his PhD research on Kurdish and Iranian refugees, drawing upon interdisciplinary perspective, sociological thought, and urban policy scholarship.

Joshua Musicant

Bio:
Josh grew up on the Jersey Shore. After graduating from the University of Michigan–B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, & Economics (PPE) and Women’s Studies–he facilitated a place-based environmental education program in Detroit Public Schools where his work focused on the development of historical context building.

Research Interests: Place-based interventions in critical education, differentially applied history pedagogy across demographics, development of capitalist and nationalist ideology in young people

Jayati Narain

Education:
MA Interdisciplinary Studies, New York University
MA Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University
BA Sociology, Miranda House, Delhi University

Research Interests: Right to the City, Practices of claiming space, Citizenship, Informality, Southern Urban Theory, Relationship between theory and practice

Publications & Fellowships:
Urban Fellows Program, Indian Institute of Human Settlements (2016-17)
In Pictures: How a Power Plant Devastated the Pristine Beauty of a Creek near Chennai Narain, Jayati; Singh, Tejinder, 2017. Scroll.in, 26 January 2017
Cities: Planning and Democracy Narain, Jayati, 2016. Souvenir: Survival, Identity and People’s Movement, 11th Biennial National Convention, Patna, Bihar. National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), 2016.
Cleaning the Air and Enabling Commuter Movement Narain, Jayati; Jayaram, Pradipti, 2016. Economic & Political Weekly, Volume 51, Issue No. 9, 27 February 2016

Gilbert Nuwagira

Education:
MS Public & Urban Policy with a graduate minor in Migration Studies: The New School
Bachelor of Economics and Management: Uganda Christian University

Bio:
Gilbert Nuwagira has worked extensively with forced migrants in Kampala and settlements across Uganda. He has also coordinated projects with civil society organizations in Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His research and practice interests include examining how migrants participate in city-making and how urban policies either include or exclude them. He is keen on exploring the linkages of urban spaces to the traditional migrant settlements and how they shape and inform urban refugee policy, especially in places facing the adverse combined effects of climate change and conflict.

Research Interests:
City Making, Urban Policy, Migration Studies, Urban Ethnography, Mobility, Mixed Methods, Urban Inequality, Cross Border Urbanism, Urban Flight, Transportation

Kevin Rogan

Bio:
Kevin Rogan’s work focuses on the built environment in its particularly capitalist aspects and its tendency towards crisis, focusing particularly on urban ground rent and regional capital devalorization. He graduated from Drury University in Springfield, MO with a Masters in Architecture and from The New School with a Masters in Urban Studies. He writes regularly for Architect’s Newspaper, The Baffler, and Failed Architecture, where he is also an editor.

Anticipated Graduation: 2027

Varun Sardesai

Education:
Master of Public Administration (MPA), Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
Master of Arts (MA), Public Policy, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai
Bachelor of Science (BSc), Economics (Honors), Symbiosis International University, Pune

Bio:
Varun Sardesai’s research interests lie at the intersection of territorial stigmatization, residential segregation, housing inequality, and urban marginality. He is particularly interested in how neighborhood stigma, spatial segregation, and the organization of the built environment shape patterns of social exclusion, access to housing, and uneven urban development.

Research Interests: Territorial Stigmatization, Residential Segregation, Housing Inequality, Urban Marginality, Social Exclusion, Smart Cities, Urban Big Data, Neurourbanism.

Research and Technical Skills:
Geospatial Analytics: Geographic Information Systems (GIS), spatial analysis, geocoding, spatial data integration
Quantitative Research: Statistical modeling, econometrics, segregation indices, inequality measurement

Roula Seghaier

Bio:
Roula Seghaier is a labor unionist with 15 years of organizing experience with migrants, refugees, and workers of the informal economy. Her academic training is in political studies, transitional justice, and human rights and she is currently pursuing a PhD at the Global Urban Studies program at Rutgers University-Newark. Roula served as the managing editor of an indie academic publication on gender and body research from the SWANA and as the strategist for a global union federation working with the domestic workers’ movement worldwide. Roula is a trained practitioner of reproductive health services. She has one award-winning novel in Arabic.

Amanda Sweeney

Bio:
Amanda is a PhD student in the Global Urban Studies program at Rutgers-Newark and is a first-generation college student. She founded Eileen’s Free Bodega, a grassroots organization that established Long Island’s first community fridge, promoting various ways to cultivate community care.

Adam Straub

Bio:

Adam Straub is a PhD student in the Global Urban Studies program at Rutgers-Newark. He holds a master’s degree from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College. His research interests include housing problems and advocacy as well as urban policy and governance. His dissertation explores affordable housing policy feedback and housing justice activism in the NY/NJ region.

Batuğhan Tatar

Education:
Bachelor of Arts in History, Middle East Technical University. (Ankara, Türkiye)
Master of Arts in History, Rutgers University – Newark. (Newark, NJ)

Bio:
Batuğhan Tatar is a PhD student in Global Urban Studies whose research focuses on Turkic populations across the world, with a particular interest in migration, mobility, urbanization, and sociocultural transformation. He received his B.A. in History from METU in Ankara, during which he studied at Leiden University in the Netherlands as an exchange student, and his M.A. in History from Rutgers University. His master’s research focused on medieval and early modern Eurasia and the nomadic Turkic communities, examining political power, migrations, and belief systems across the Eurasian steppes. He has contributed to the NECRO-IST project, which examines Istanbul’s cemeteries as urban archives through digital and spatial methods, and the SHIFA-ANA project, concentrating on disease, death, healing, and their relationship with urban environments. His current research brings together interdisciplinary approaches to examine Turkic communities across regions and historical periods.

Fatma Zişan Tokaç

Education:
MPA in Environmental Science and Policy, Columbia University, New York, 2017
BA in Environmental Engineering, Yıldız Technical University, İstanbul, 2013

Bio:
Zişan is an environmental engineer who received her bachelor’s degree from Yıldız Technical University and later on obtained a Masters of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University. She has professional work experience for over 5 years with environmental NGOs and public sector both in the US and her home country Turkey. She was lucky to call two significant metropolises of the world -İstanbul and New York- “home” and get to work on their environmental challenges.

Anticipated Graduation: 2027

Research Interests: Zişan’s main research interest is urban sustainability in the context of climate change and environmental justice. She aims to utilize remote sensing and geospatial data analysis to study İstanbul’s recent urban development, and map out models for a sustainable and just development strategy for cities alike in the developing world.

Tamara Velasquez Leiferman

Bio:
Tamara Velasquez Leiferman is a fourth-year PhD student at the Rutgers GUS program. She was born and raised in Mexico City, and has a background working within Mexican civil society. She holds a BA in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and an MS in International Affairs from The New School, with a minor in Global Urban Futures. After completing her undergraduate degree, Tamara worked at the US-Mexico Foundation in Mexico City, and subsequently joined the team at Transparency International-Mexico where she worked on researching issues related to open government and anti-corruption. She has been published in The Huffington Post Latino Voices, Sopitas, Nación 321, and Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica, and also co-authored a chapter in a book about Open Contracting. Her research interests include gentrification, public space, smart cities, urban mobility, and urban informality.

Vania Villanueva

Bio:
Her research focuses on migration and immigrant integration, and quantitative methods. Recent work examines the experiences and economic integration of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles and New York City. She holds an MA in Sociology from City University of New York and a BA in law from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru.