Jason Corburn, associate professor, city and regional planning

Jason Corburn is an associate professor of city and regional planning and a member of the Global Metropolitan Studies initiative at UC Berkeley. He also co-directs the joint Master of City Planning and Master of Public Health degree program at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the links between environmental health and social justice in cities, notions of expertise in science-based policy making, and the role of local knowledge in addressing environmental and public health problems. Corburn is currently working with the city of Richmond, California, the Contra Costa County Public Health Department, and a number of non-profit organizations to help implement a set of “healthy city planning” projects and develop a set of healthy city indicators, all aimed at reducing health inequities. He is also working in the South Bronx with a number of local organizations to stop the siting of a jail in the community and to generate development alternatives that promote human health, job creation and environmental quality.