Doctoral Student Profiles

Thomas is a PhD candidate in Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. His research centers on sustainable and resilient urban development with a focus on geographic information systems and scenario planning methods. For his dissertation research, he is exploring the utility of scenario planning methods for understanding how green infrastructure can make communities more resilient in the future.

As a research associate, Tom has contributed to several projects, including the Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project, the Sustainable Places Project (funded by a HUD Sustainable Communities Planning Implementation Grant), Project Connect (a City of Austin High Capacity Transit initiative) and the NATO Urbanization Project. He most recently contributed to the development of the Corridor Housing Preservation Tool, a replicable methodology to help cities prioritize the preservation of existing affordable housing. The tool, now available as a component of the Envision Tomorrow scenario planning software, was recognized with a 2017 Smart Cities Award from the American Planning Association Technology Division and a 2017 Implementation Award from the Scenario Planning Applications Network.

Tom holds a Master of Science in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Minnesota.

Adrian Lipscombe is a Sustainable Cities Doctoral Initiative Fellow and is concentrating her studies on all aspects of sustainable transportation. Her interest is in equity and accessibility to bicycle transportation and the perception of transportation in minority communities. She obtained a BA in Architecture and a Masters in Architecture with a certificate in Urban and Regional Planning, and she was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi Bronze Medal from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a member of the American Institute of Architecture Associates, Women in Transportation Seminars, and the American Planning Association. After graduating from the master's program she became an adjunct professor in the architecture department at UTSA as well as a Planner for the City of San Antonio. Currently, she is the Project Manager of Bike Share for the City of Austin.

Lynn trained and practiced as a landscape designer and urban planning in Charlottesville, VA and Austin, TX before she began her doctoral studies at UT. She holds a M.L.A. in Landscape Architecture and a M.U.E.P. in Urban Planning from the University of Virginia. Before starting her studies at UT she worked at the United Nations in New York and in Morocco where she focused on the issue of sustainability education. Her current research focuses on the creation and maintenance of public spaces through various social, political and artistic processes. Within the City of Austin Lynn has served with various panels, boards and workgroups including the Art in Public Place Panel, the Waller Creek Citizen’s Advisory Committee, the CreateAustin Task Force, and most recently she was appointed as Council Representative to the Austin Parks and Recreation Board.

Originally from Zacatecas, México, Alejandra received her B.A. in Architecture at UC Berkeley and a M.S, in Community and Regional Planning at UT Austin. Her Master's thesis evaluated recent housing and densification programs in Mexico City which meant to increase housing access and repopulate the urban core. The main focus of this research, which she has presented at a number of academic conferences (Urban Affairs Association, The International Studies Association, and Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning), was on local governance and how it influenced, either positively or negatively, the drafting and implementation of such programs. As a Master's student, she also collaborated with Dr. Peter Ward on his research on Texas colonias and informal subdivisions, and with Dr. Elizabeth Mueller as a Graduate Research Assistant.

Her current research focuses on the implications of increasingly problematic rates of housing vacancy in various Mexican regions, which are paradoxically coupled with persistent housing shortages. She is particularly interested on studying the roles of the Mexican State and the market in reproducing such conditions, and in driving housing production and urban development in an apparently unsustainable way, in both socioeconomic and environmental terms. A central hypothesis is that housing finance policy, characterized by the liberalization of credit and its support to a monopolistic and speculative real estate sector, may be fostering a mismatch between the private housing supply, and the actual housing needs of the Mexican population. 

Dr. Andrea Roberts is a Community & Regional Planning and Historic Preservation researcher, writer and educator. She is a 2016-2017 Emerging Scholar Fellowship in Race and Gender in the Built Environment of the American City at the University of Texas at Austin's School of Architecture. Her research and teaching interests include community development, African American Studies,  historic preservation policy, participatory action research, urban finance and development, planning history and theory, and cultural landscapes. Her postdoctoral research explores African American diasporas and heritage through ethnographic study and documentation of the history of African American placemaking and planning in early ex-slave settlements as well as contemporary grassroots planning and social constructions of "free Black " communities. She brings to her research and writing more than a decade of experience in community and economic development, public management, and planning.
While pursuing her doctoral degree, she supported outreach and beta testing for the Austin Historical Survey Wiki, a crowdsourcing architectural survey application. In 2012, she created and served as Project Manager for The Fifth Street Project, a community-based planning initiative and market study conducted under the auspices of the Center for Sustainable Development at UT.  
 Andrea holds a MA in Governmental Administration and Public Finance from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Political Science and Women’s Studies from Vassar College.  She has served as a City of Austin Historic Landmark Commissioner. 

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Raksha is a third year doctoral student in the Community and Regional Planning Program. Her research interests lie at the intersection of social justice, youth geographies and the transformative power of design. Raksha has a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, with a specialization in sustainable community development, from Virginia Tech. Prior to re-entering school, Raksha managed the sustainability program at the National League of Cities, working with sustainability directors and local elected officials to progress city sustainability efforts in the United States.

Juan is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin in the program Community and Regional Planning. He has an undergraduate degree in architecture from the National University of Colombia and a joint master degree in urban design and planning from Bauhaus-Weimar University and Tongji University in Shanghai. For his M.Sc., he conducted research on the subject of urban redevelopment forms and their social impacts in the city of Xiamen, China. During his time in Europe, he participated in research projects focused on airport regions and urban revitalization, and as practitioner, he worked on urban design and architecture projects in China, Spain, Bulgaria and Germany. In Colombia, he has been conducting research and teaching in architecture and urban design at the Pilot University in Bogota. In addition he has worked as urban planning consultant for both public and private entities on transportation, affordable housing and zoning codes. He has been awarded grants and distinctions for his academic research by the Colombian Ministry of Education, Colombian Science and Technology Department, the Colombian Architects Society, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Institute for European Urban Studies and the Fulbright Commission. Juan's research interests include sustainable urban design, urban morphology, socio-spatial segregation and informal settlements in Latin America.