Lisa Schweitzer

Lisa Schweitzer is an Emerita Professor at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy. She earned a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2004, MA degrees in Economics and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Iowa in 1995, and a BA in Social Work and Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Iowa in 1992. Her academic career includes positions as Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs from 2004 to 2007, Brookings Institution Fellow from 2007 to 2010, and Assistant Professor followed by Associate Professor at USC’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development from 2007 to 2010 and 2010 onward, respectively.

Schweitzer’s research specializations encompass transit policy and planning, environmental effects of transportation including air quality and community health, sustainability, evacuations, hazardous materials spills, environmental injustice, social exclusion, and planning theory. She has authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of the American Planning Association, Planning Theory, Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Transportation Research Part D. Key works include “Planning and social media: A case study of public transit” (Journal of the American Planning Association, 2014), which received the 2015 Best Paper Award; “Neighborhood air quality, respiratory health, and vulnerable populations in compact and sprawled regions” (Journal of the American Planning Association, 2010); “Restorative planning ethics: The therapeutic imagination and planning in public institutions” (Planning Theory, 2014); and “Right answers, wrong questions: Environmental justice as urban research” (Urban Studies, 2007). Her scholarship, cited over 2,600 times on Google Scholar, addresses equity in urban transportation and environmental policy. Schweitzer has received the 2016 Margarita McCoy Award for advancing the status of women in higher education and the 2015 Marsha Marker Feld Award for Service to the Profession from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. She has also contributed to Gender and Sexuality Studies at USC Dornsife College.

Professional Email: lschweit@usc.edu