Full Time Faculty

Rob Kent (Chair), Ph.D.

Craig Olwert, Ph.D.

Henrik Minassians, Ph.D.

Ward Thomas, Ph.D.

Zeynep Toker, Ph.D.

Mintesnot Woldeamanuel, Ph.D.

Part-Time Faculty

Manraj Bhatia, Ph.D.

Euripedes De Oliveira, Ph.D.

Scott Howard, J.D.

Edward Huang, Ph.D.

Andrew Jared, J.D.

Abhishek Tiwari, Ph.D.

Diana Varat, J.D.

Dev Vrat, M.A., AICP

Claude Willey, M. F. A.

Staff

Mirna Reyes

(Administrative Support Coordina-tor)

Ian Donaldson

(Administrative Support Assistant)

Charity Tolefree

(Student Assistant)

Lab Assistants

Tracy Chu

Jose Quintanilla

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

Campus Spotlight 2

Faculty Publications 2

Community Partners 2

Alumni 3

Masters of Urban Planning 3

Students’ News 3

Contact Us 4

N e w s l e t t e r o f C S U N D e p a r t m e n t o f U r b a n S t u d i e s a n d P l a n n i n g

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning is flourishing.

The department currently boasts approximately 70 undergraduate majors, 20 undergraduate minors, and 30 master of urban planning graduate stu-dents. Spring marked a major milestone in our history, when the first class of 15 Master of Urban Planning degree recipients graduated in May 2017. The Master’s program has proved to be a strong draw for the department and a third cohort of 16 new graduate students began the program this fall. The new academic year brought a number of personnel changes to the department. Mirna Reyes joined the department as its administrative sup-port coordinator (office manager) in December 2016. In May 2017, the department also bid farewell to two faculty members, Kenya Covington and Alessandro Rigolon, who accepted positions at other universities. As the summer waned and the fall semester began, the department welcomed several new faculty to its roster. These include An-drew Jared (Planning Law and Sustainability), Edward Huang (Los Angeles), Manraj Bhatia (Graphic Communications for Planners), and Diana Varat (Planning Law).

THE U R B S P O ST

Fall 2017 Issue

Urban Studies and Planning

CHAIR’S MESSAGE

AL U M N I E LE C T E D A S APA PR E S I D EN T : KU R T CH R I ST I A N S E N , FAICP

Mirna Reyes joined the Department of Urban Studies and Planning in Decem-ber 2016, as the administrative support coordinator. She graduated from Cali-fornia State University Northridge (CSUN), with a major in sociology in 2007. Her professional background includes over 15 years of working in the in the non-profit sector, providing administrative and community development ser-vices. In her free-time, she enjoys meditation, traveling and learning about different cultures. She also mentors youth on higher education opportunities, resources and quality access.

W E L C O M I N G M I R N A

Our department’s alumni Kurt Christiansen, FAICP was elected as President for American Planners Association (APA). He will assume office on January 1, 2018. Kurt is the economic and community development director for the City of Azusa, California. Previously, he served as community development director for Yorba Linda and development services director for Sierra Madre. He served as presi-dent of APA's California Chapter, vice chair of the Chapter Presi-dents Council, and a member of the APA Governance Committee and the Membership Committee. He also served as the co-chair of the local host committee for the 2012 APA National Planning Con-

ference in Los Angeles. He is a member of the California State University, Northridge, Urban Planning and Studies Department Alumni Council. Kurt was an honoree at the 2012 CSUN Vol-unteer Service Awards ceremony. He graduated from CSUN in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies and Planning and completed a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles, in 1991.

CSUN Sustainability Center The Associated Students (AS) at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has de-signed and constructed a new 10,000 square-foot Sustainability Center. The new AS Sus-tainability Center is a multi-functional space, serving primarily as an expanded central col-lections location for campus recyclables. It also serves as the public face and administrative hub of the Center for its programs and services. In addition, it is the home of the administra-tive offices of the Institute for Sustainability and a focal point for the University community for educational programs, services and issues related to the environment and sustainability. The CSUN Sustainability Center was devised as a space with lofty green building goals and served as an educational opportunity for future students. According to Catherine Kni-azewycz, Director of Design and Construction, the structure will be a zero-net-energy build-ing, meaning that solar panels will be the main source of electricity. The Sustainability Cen-ter features a courtyard for recycling and seminar rooms for educational programs about sustainability. The building also includes administrative offices, shower rooms and a com-posting toilet.

Page 2

CAMPUS SPOTL IGHT

C O M M U N I T Y P A R T N E R S : T H E C I T Y O F L O S A N G E L E S

The URBS Post , Fal l 2017

The City of Los Angeles has long been an important community partner for the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. This has been especially true with respect to the Planning Department as well as the planning staff employed independently by the city councilmembers in district offices. For instance, recently several students interned in the planning offices of the Van Nuys Civic Center. These include Jennifer Sanchez (‘15) in Spring 2016, Manuel Elizarraras (‘17) in Fall 2016, Christina Nguyen (‘17) in Spring 2017, and Alvaro Barragan in Fall 2017. City planners, Elva Nuno-O’Donnell and Adam Vallani, have done a superb job supervising and mentoring these interns. The city also provided many other internship possibilities. Many students have also found rewarding planning internships working in the district offices of Los Angeles City councilmembers. Alumni Patricia Steur (‘03), Claudia Rodriguez (‘05), Andy Rodriguez (‘10), Diana Yedoyan (‘13), Sergio Carvajal (’14), and all interned in councilmembers district offices. Others have interned in related agencies – for example, Dang Nguyen (‘17) in the Department of Transportation and Humberto Quintana (‘10) in the Mayor’s office. Many CSUN graduates also pursued their careers with the City of Los Angeles in planning and related fields. These include Aleta James (‘82), John Strickland (‘91), Anna Vidal (‘92), Victor Takayama (‘02), Claudia Rodriguez (‘05), Andy Rodriguez (‘10), Alisha Marshall (‘12), Aida Karapetian (‘13), Hatim Fatehi (‘14), Ruben Rubi (‘14) and Olga Ayala (‘17).

FA C U L T Y P U B L I C A T I O N S Henrik Minassians and Ravi Roy, “Governance Structures and the “(De)Politicization” of Per-formance Measures”, System Dynamics for Performance Management. Springer,2017 .

Zeynep Toker and Henrik Minassians, “Miscalculated opposition of businesses to street im-provements” Journal of Urban Design and Planning, January 2017, Issue DP10.

Mintesnot Woldeamanuel and Craig Olwert, “The Multimodal Connectivity at Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Stations and the Impact on Ridership”, Journal of Transportation Research Forum, 55(1):87-102, .2016

G r a d u a t e s ( S p r i n g 2 0 1 7 )

[Masters of Urban Planning (MUP)]

Rawan Al-Jamal Samina Alam Olga Ayala Jordan Barbakow Shelby Cramton Alvin Estrada Pedro Fuentes Nara Gasparian Britney Gatewood Kevin Kay Kendrya Morris Dang Nguyen Suresh Ratnam Artin Yaghobian

[Bachelor in Urban Studies and Planning ]

Sultan Alsulaiman Emil Barkhordarian Manuel Elizarraras Jonathan Fox Elizabeth Golden Ghazal Hooshmand Aram Madoyan Garen Majarian Omer Malik Christina Nguyen Aldo Ortega Yanez Dominick Ortiz Martin Silva Conrad White

[Minor in Urban Studies and Planning ]

Brenda Amboy Ismael Carbajal Perez Tatiana Gevelekian Inderpreet Kaur Lauren McCune Morgan Spadone Yixuan Zhu

The Department of Urban Studies and Planning graduated its first co-hort of the Masters of Urban Plan-ning (MUP) program in May, 2017. Congratulations graduates!

The department also accepted its third cohort of students and classes began in Fall 2017. Now we have a total of 34 students in the graduate program.

The Master of Urban Planning pro-gram is now accepting applications for the Fall 2018 cycle! The priority application deadline is Friday March 2nd, 2018.

The URBS Post , Fal l 2017

Ryan Adams (‘09), is an assistant volleyball coach at the College of William and Mary in Wil-liamsburg, VA.

Charles Albanese (‘82) has retired from the Boise Police Department (ID) and now is an adjunct pro-fessor of criminal justice at Boise State University.

Saud Alsair (‘13) is an urban planner specializing in public facilities with the Arriyadh Development Authority in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yahel Barredo (‘16) is a victim services repre-sentative for the Los Angeles County District At-torney’s Office in Los Angeles, CA.

In June 2016, Diana Benitez (‘14) completed her Masters in urban and regional planning at the Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles. She now works as a data and research analyst at the Advance-ment Project California.

Gisela Cardines (‘01) is an administrative assis-tant with the Los Angeles Police Department, where she has worked for 10 years.

The planning director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) is Steve De-George (‘93).

Jaime Del Rio (‘12) is a community organizer for Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County.

At the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transpor-tation Agency, Andres DiZitti (‘10) was promoted to principal planner.

Karen Frederiksen (‘84) is associate general counsel for the Walt Disney Company in Glendale, CA.

In Los Angeles, CA, Marcos Fuentes (‘16) is the assistant manager of parking enforcement at UCLA.

Christopher Hicks (‘13) completed his Masters in planning at University of California, Irvine in 2016 and worked subsequently for Neighborworks in Orange County, through the Americorps Vista Program.

Jose Daniel Jimenez (‘02) is a planning commis-sioner for the City of West Covina, CA. He is also a city planner for the City of Commerce, CA.

Kevin Khouri (‘15) is a transportation planner with the Ventura County Transportation Commis-sion (VCTC). His recent work focused on route planning and scheduling efficiency.

Fipe Leilua (‘12) is a planning assistant for the City of Los Angeles.

In Oxnard, CA, Ricardo Meza (‘14) works as a plan-ning intern for the city.

Philip Neumann (‘07) is a supervisor for the De-partment of Homeless Services for the City of New York.

Page 3

ALUMNI Samuel Dominguez was the recipient of the 2016/17 James H. Ring Scholar-ship Award. He received a scholarship of $1,000 in recognition of his academic achievements. This scholarship is named for its founder, James H. Ring, an alum-nus of the department (1972).

Ariel Jones received a $2,500 scholar-ship awarded from the California Associ-ation of Professional Employees (CAPE) in May 2017. This scholarship was estab-lished by CAPE to support undergradu-ate students in Urban Studies and Plan-ning at CSUN.

The Urban Planning Students Associa-tion elected new officers in Spring 2017.

Samuel Dominguez (President) Cinthya Guzman (Vice President) Ariel Jones (Treasurer) Martin Hernandez (Secretary) Linda Mendez (Social Media Manager)

William Cabrera (Event Coordinator) Jared Magsanoc (APA Student Rep) Areli Perez (Fundraising Coordinator)

Haley Harleman (Neighborhood Coun-cil Liaison)

Our undergraduate students Raquel Menanno and Erlyn Gonzalez present-ed their research on the Los Angeles River Revitalization at the American Planning Association (APA) conference in New York City in May 2017.

Our graduate students Alvin Estrada and Jordan Barbakow presented their re-search at the annual Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) conference at Palm Desert on May 17, 2017.

ST U D E N T NEW S M A S T E R S O F U R B A N P L A N N I N G ( M U P ) , F I R S T G R A D U A T E S ;

N E W C O H O R T

THANK YOU to our alumni who volun-teered to help on MOCK INTERVIEWS on April 27 2017 .

Mike Ascione

David Canlas

Freddy Carrillo

Kurt Christiansen

Carlos Contreras

Yvette Lopez

Christopher Palmer

Christopher Smith

Humberto Quintana

THANK YOU to our alumni who helped on SPEED MENTORING on April 19, 2017.

Michelle Aragones

Mike Ascione

Carlos Contreras

Andres Di Zitti

Isaiah Ford

Yvette Lopez-Ledesma

Andy Rodriguez

Christopher Smith

Marisol Zamar

THANK YOU! Ariel Jones at the award ceremony

Contact us: Department of Urban Studies and Planning, SH 220

California State University, Northridge 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge CA 91330-8259

urban.studies@csun.edu

Phone: 818-677-2904 Fax: 818-677-5850

http://www.csun.edu/urbanstudies

Department of Urban Studies and Planning Sierra Hall 220 18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge CA 91330-8259

If you would like to send us information for upcoming issues, or if you have any questions, contact the Newsletter Editor, Dr. Mintesnot Woldeamanuel at mintesnot.woldeamanuel@csun.edu; phone: 818-677-7246 or the Chair of the Department Dr. Rob Kent at rkent@csun.edu; phone: 818-677-4372.

The goal of The URBS Post is to maintain communication with our alumni, faculty, and students.

We love correspondence from our alumni! Please keep in touch with us. We would like to know what you are doing, along with learning about exciting events and accomplishments in your life. Please keep us updated on any changes of home and e-mail addresses.

Internships

We are expanding our internship program. Let us know if your company offers internships and we will share this information with our students.

Donations

Please consider giving: no donation is too small. Donating provides both finan-cial support and encouragement to students. Information on ways to give can be found at: https://givenow.csun.edu/ or call 818-677-4372.

Let us know if you have suggestions on how we can improve our newsletter. We hope to hear from you soon!!

L e a r n m o r e a t

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