 Hello everyone. Hi everyone. Can you hear me? I think some people are still joining us. I'm very excited to be with you today. I'm I'm all on draws. I'm the dean of the school. Very excited to be speaking with Malo Hudson. Who has been at GSAP for a number of years, both as director of the urban planning PhD program as well as the director of the urban community and health equity lab. And one of the reasons why I wanted to speak with Malo today is well two reasons. One is at times the PhDs are somewhat obscure from in terms of their work from the rest of the school and I think the, the work is so crucial, especially at this moment that I wanted to give the opportunity for Malo to share his thoughts about where urban planning both as a discipline and as a practice are going, but also because Malo has been very much involved at the university with Columbia for a couple of years and he's sort of coming back and so it's a kind of welcome back. And, you know, I, Malo Hudson's focus is incredibly timely. In many ways, he is a scholar but his scholarship is very much a sort of engaged form of scholarship which was one of the reasons why I was very excited that he joined this GSAP a few years ago. And this capacity to both be, or to be at the same time, a public intellectual someone who really works with the community in a very engaged way but also advises government works on policy to sort of cross disciplinary even within planning and I think is incredibly important and at the same time the topics at the intersection of health, race, issues of equity development, questions of scale, you know, how does one think about, you know, sort of addressing the issues at a community scale when the issues are much broader than the scale of that particular community so that thinking across scale is very GSAP and, and very important to us and, and, you know, not taking for granted that environmental I think of as environmental actions that are positive are necessarily positive I think Malo's research has often sort of focused on questions of environmental gentrification and how certain kind of certain certain, you know, as architects as planners when we intervene, sometimes the consequences on on the kind of on issues of health on equity are not are not where what they are intended to be. And so both, you know, I want to first talk about Malo your vision for the PhD program because I think that, you know, typically we think about that program is very much focused on the discipline itself and a sort of introspection that at the same time I think your approach is opening up to possibilities for engagement for action. And then want to talk about your lab as well, which is your own practice so. Sure, well, well, first of all, I want to thank everyone for joining us today and I'm all for that wonderful and warm introduction. I have to say this is my started my fourth year at Columbia now it's unbelievable how fast time goes. And it seems like just yesterday I arrived. And now I'm starting my fourth year. And you know, I have to say that, you know, obviously we're living in some historical times very challenging times but I also look at as an opportunity. And if we think about a PhD program, I mean there are traditional programs where you are an academic you come in you focus on theory you write your papers you write your books. You go get tenure, you know what not and much of your work might sit on a shelf. I mean obviously, or just touches a small group of people. And I think that, you know, you think about what the role of the 21st century university is it's not just to produce research and scholarship obviously you want to provide service to do your discipline. But I think more importantly we have to start thinking about what is the broader purpose or what, you know, President Bollinger and others have talked about as the fourth purpose of the university. And I think with our PhD program which is couched in a professional school, it's important to think about the opportunity so obviously we want to attract some of the best minds in the world. Great scholars who are thinking outside the box, have great methodology, sound research, but at the same time, what is the outcome of that work. We want people actually to go out and to solve some of these challenging problems that we face and so as scholars and I know many PhD students are, you know, on on zoom right now listening to me. Oftentimes we're isolated, we wonder if our work has any impact because a dissertation is very lonely when you write it right you have a small group of a small community. And so it's nice to understand like how will your work really actually have some impact. So, first and foremost, I think our PhD program is focused on theory and practice. And we want those great minds to say not only will we come in and focus whether it be around climate change, housing discrimination, the built environment and health, urban analytics, what have you there are a number of areas and I can dive into more specifics about some of the work that students are doing. But it's to say, once I graduate, what kind of jobs like one half right and so it's not just the theory and practice but a great PhD program can be able to point to insane here where our graduates are. I've come from a little bit of both of a theory and practice background as well as a more traditional type of PhD, you know, PhD programs where I've taught. And I think it's important to say look, we have students that go into academia. We have students that go into actually policy research think tanks. We have students who are entrepreneurs. We have students that work for international organizations where there'd be NGOs or whatnot. We're all the way down to working for city governments, state governments, federal governments and so forth. So I think for us as I tried to and I know my colleagues feel very similar as to not just attract students that are just a prototype. I think students that actually will go out into institutions and organizations wants a real world and take their research and scholarship to actually have impact on systems change on policy and so forth. I'm sorry, I think you might be muted at all. Yes, I think I was I was being muted. So, and, and the other aspect of that and then this is where maybe I want to tie it already with the lab is, you know, it's kind of new forms of practice. In fact, that I think is very that I, you know, I just have a really interested in and how you're, you know, you're developing your research and your scholarship through, you know, what, how does the lab kind of impact and intervenes because I think that is an interesting model for exactly, you know, the kinds of engagements that you're describing right then you could you could. Yeah, and I think it's important to go back to the doctor program for a second about that is that, you know, and to make it personal, I think, you know, I'm speaking to a large audience today but I'm really speaking also right now to our doctoral students and people are interested in pursuing a doctorate degree. My you have to think about your personal life and sort of is your life separate from your work so to speak and for me they're the same. You know, I walk through life and the kind of work I do is the kind of life I try to live so I'm very much obviously interested in the built environment and health equity. And so they're not separate from me so everything I do is related to also my research for the most part right and obviously I'm a father children all those things but at the end of the day it's they're not separate. And so for some people you have to decide what kind of scholar do you want to be do you want to be one that says this is kind of the other that I study. And then I have that separation or is it something that you immerse yourself in and it's everything you do it's it's you know you breathe and and I know our students are like that full of full of energy and they just live and breathe it. And so with our doctoral program it is tailored for that it is a small boutique program where we generally have three students a year that come in. And what we want them to do is to have that flexibility to obviously understand what happens in urban planning with the big issues are which I can touch on the second, but more importantly, branching out across Columbia University across New York City and of course the world to figure out where do I fit what kind of resources I need to bring to the table and who's asking important questions I mean I wish I could sit here and tell you urban planners we have all the great solutions we don't. We have great ideas, but also in public health and sociology and anthropology and you know we can go on and on and architecture. So the question is, can you be the type of scholar that can understand when you're faced with a complex issues such as climate change and say who do I need to be at the table. Either way through my research as well as thinking about these solutions to have these conversations so some of the best growing I've ever done is when I've had a conversation with colleagues and other disciplines and they say oh that's interesting you think about it this way here's how we think about a particular issue. So I've learned, you know I've had colleagues that are doctors and engineers and, and doing all kinds of great research and I never thought. When I was a finishing a postdoc through Robert Johnson Health and Society scholars program at the University of Michigan, I was having these detailed conversations with the neurosurgeon, right from Johns Hopkins, but very interesting similar things health equity but in an international context he was doing a lot of work with colleagues in Ethiopia and there was there were issues obviously with trauma and whatnot and so how do you then kind of think about the broader community and that's where he came to me and said, can we have a conversation about how do you build community how do you think about the infrastructure in order to even provide adequate health care and access and all those things so I say all of that because I think it you know oftentimes when students ask me should I pursue a PhD or not and our PhD is even relevant. I would say, look, it's a personal issue. I think if you want to pursue a PhD, first and foremost, you must have passion to want to do research to want to use your research for policy change and to engage at the local level and what not obviously globally, but more importantly, like is it something that you can commit to over time and as a part of who you are in your everyday life so I wanted to put all that out there because I think it's important to understand what kind of scholar you want to be and I'm not passing judgment that some scholars who say I do my work I go home and I do something else and on the weekends or the week summers I do that that's one way of doing scholarship but I think given the complexity if we think about where the world is going the world's urbanizing. We know there's great inequalities, we know there are issues around water access, air quality. And we have the global pandemic that that we're dealing with now and we go on and on we already know what many of the challenges are and we're going to keep studying what more will come up. But the real question is then what are the solutions to those problems right it's not just enough for you to say, gee the world's messed up there's unemployment there's poverty there's inequality and keep documenting It's all important we must document it we must approach it from a very methodical scientific way, but at the end of the day, what are you going to do about it right are you training students to go out and change the world are you working with colleagues who are working on real world projects. So that's really the nice segue into what I've been trying to do with the Urban Community and Health Equity Lab which you know you obviously were very supportive supportive of that. And this is why I came to Columbia and certainly with to GSAP is because I wanted to be able to think about the built environment in a different way branch out across Columbia and New York City and also globally to say how can we try to solve some of these more complex issues right. I mean obviously I'm just one person and we're all just individual scholars but together, you could really bring about the change that many people have been asking for right that we see now that we're in the middle of. And so I think what better time than to be studying whether the architecture urban design urban planning it's the challenges are daunting at times. But it's also exciting thinking about the challenges that exist and the ability to go out and think about how does the built environment impact people's lives. What are the issues around spatial inequality. What are the you know what institutions are providing kind of the solutions that we need and which ones are relic and need to be shaken up and to be torn down and to be rebuilt. So all those things started going on but I think it's important to have that conversation first with yourself. And then more important to think about the community of scholars that you embed yourself around right and so which type of people do you surround yourself with especially for doctoral students, writing a dissertation can be very lonely. But where do you find your inspiration or where do you go to to see the world through a different lens. And for me that is talking to colleagues and other disciplines, going out to meet with people who actually doing the, what I sometimes joke and call the real work. They're out on the front lines every day whether it be community organizing or they'll be providing social services, whether it be building built real buildings right I could talk about it they are actually building it and so how do you then learn from them to make sure that you're improving every day and so forth so. Thanks Malo and one of the things that I think is maybe a shift something we've talked about. You know we've often talked about the divorce between I mean you're mentioning sort of all these kind of other disciplines and reaching out but sometimes, you know the divorce between architecture and planning, I mean we even at GSAP right. There's a sort of, we're trying to stitch things back together with you with way paying. I think more and more architecture students design students are interested in policy, and at the same time you've looked you've kind of anchored issues of health in place right you brought back. You know you are holding together the kind of social sciences, but also bringing them back as a planner to place and to the importance of the physical and the built environment in effecting issues of equity issues of social justice and, and I think that that is, I don't know that people appreciate the, the sort of the progress let's say that we've made in trying to, because if we are going to address those very large scale sort of concerns climate change equity, you know unless we stitch back together, all these scales and these modes of sort of engagement would be very difficult and I think that's kind of very sort of different in terms of your own approach in the same way that you sort of hybridize the kind of theoretical and the practical and this notion of a very engaged sort of research and scholarship on the ground and working with communities while also writing and theorizing about, you know, as, as in your, your book, right the urban struggle for economic environmental and social justice you've kind of give very specific examples of your engagement with communities, relative to institutions which of course at Columbia is, you know, quite interesting to think about and so just wanted to highlight why this is a little bit of a, you know, a kind of movement that is really encouraging let's say Well, well first of all, I really appreciate that question and those comments because I think it's, it's really important to, you know, I could sit here and say like you can work with colleagues here and think about the workload. The reason why I say I regard as a young scholar was to learn a case. So Manuel Castells was one of my great advisors at Berkeley and then I went off to MIT. And he always said to me, make sure you learn a case or learn something specific that you really understand. And then from that case go learn another case and then do comparative analysis and build from there. And so I start to do that I obviously my work is rooted in community development. Health equity came much later actually subconsciously I was always concerned about health equity but I didn't have the language, or the framework or the methodologies that I got from my colleagues in the public health realm and medicine, but really understanding like what's happening in a community and from there I was talking to people, which now makes a lot of sense I mean we've we've read the different books like roots root shot, but I saw people where their neighborhoods were changing. And there was a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety and trauma and anger and frustration and hopelessness and feeling helpless and, you know, so I couldn't put my finger on it but I just thought something's happening I was engaging with people. They were working really hard they were investing and yet they said no matter how hard we try to invest on a particular community there are other things we can't control whether it be the global economy, whether it be investment. I mean, many other things you had alluded to earlier. And from there you start to understand kind of certainly from researchers perspective but where people are really coming from and trying to listen to what their needs are and what their concerns are. And they're saying you're not the expert but you do have skills that you can bring to the table that can help them and so in the case when I was a doctoral student in Boston, you know I started to be very I was always interested in the, you know, poverty and equality from a long time from my early days at Berkeley as undergraduate and then a grad student. But I wanted to understand more like how does it actually operate and so I start to just poke around through Boston go out to different neighborhoods. And I start to meet people in Roxbury and south end in different places. And there's a similar story that started to arise right is people like I said before felt helpless they felt the changes. And from there I just want to know more of like what was actually happening. And you know to make a long story short, you, we obviously know what was happening there's all moving back to cities and what you know well documented in the US context but also globally. And then as I started to do more, you know have opportunity to travel more broadly not necessarily for research but to give talks and to meet with colleagues whether in South America or Europe. You start as I started to see similar stories. And you start to realize G the struggle in East Oakland California is a similar struggle in the south side of Chicago which is the same struggle in East London versus Chicago Chile right the struggle is very similar Bogota what have you. And so the question is then if this is happening globally, and these issues are central to people's lives. What can you do in terms of for me this is I'm speaking more personally now, what could I do as a researcher to try to produce a scholarship that actually is applicable or replicable and scalable right because at the end of the day what's the point of having this nice boutique program if it can't be replicated if you can't take it to scale if you can't measure it. Understand what the actual impact is and you know oftentimes we talk about impact we're always talking about the positive impacts, but sometimes programs have negative impacts unintended consequences. So when I say impact I mean both positive and negative, being able to measure those things and understand, but then to understand who your colleagues as one thing surround yourself around other wonderful scholars that share your passion share your interest to then branch out and have those conversations with them and find out oh what's happening in Nairobi is the same thing that might be happening somewhere else and then how we can work together to create a more of a global community of scholars but more importantly to bring about real change. Sorry to get but the scale pieces incredibly incredibly important, and I didn't want to gloss over that so I really appreciate the question because I think sometimes it's easy for me now as a changing faculty member has been teaching now about 14 years 15 years to say oh I'm doing all these things but I had to start somewhere, and I started in a neighborhood right really as an undergraduate at Berkeley and East Oakland and West Oakland. And then from there doing a little more work in San Francisco and then baby hundreds point and then Richmond and then obviously branching out to Boston elsewhere. And I think it's, it's a, it's really interesting it's a question of scale but also as a, as a planner you're really connecting local conditions to global, you're thinking relationally across these different cities and these different contexts and certainly, you know, Agisa but also in the urban planning program I'm thinking about Heba Boakar who's kind of trying conditions in the Middle East to conditions in Latin America or Wei Ping Wu who's really focusing on, on Asia and and thinking relationally even across cities in China, Lance Freeman's work is much more anchored in New York, etc. So I think I think that sort of community is very sort of, it's been very interesting to trace how these themes are cutting across place and scale, and kind of connecting the local and the global and one of the big, I mean devastating equalizer right now is COVID-19 and I know that this sits exactly at the heart of your scholarship and research, you know, and there's been so many questions about the future of cities or the, you know, like what is the, what is the future impact of COVID-19 potentially and whether, you know, this is a kind of are we are we going to see cities empty again. And, you know, at this, you know, at the moment when we're supposed to be densifying in some ways and minimizing footprint on the planet is there. Again, a sort of exodus and, you know, along socio economic lines also and so I was curious I know you've been speaking quite a bit about COVID-19 and it's, you know, what you can imagine its impact might be and I was curious to hear a little bit, your thoughts about that as well. Yeah, so, so obviously it's, you know, COVID-19 is a major pandemic that's affecting all of us. And, you know, one of the things I try to do is not be to try not to predict the future right because you as soon as you do that you're wrong. Oftentimes, but I will say that I, why don't I talk about what I see as potential implications and what we can decide as a society at what we want to do. So, let's think first and foremost, the impact of COVID-19 and the disproportionate that it's had on communities of color and poor and vulnerable populations whether it be elderly and whatnot, and sort of how it's exposed and, you know, I obviously the world but certainly the United States, how it's exposed the system that we thought we had in place our healthcare system that many people said you know, we can handle this. It's on the brink of it's under major stress and in many places might be in the brink of collapsing. It's brought a big flash of a huge light on our inequality and which is no surprise to all of us but but if we start to dig a little bit deeper in terms of your insurance is tied to your job. Your if you are a working parent, and your children can't go to school. How can you also take care of your children through zoom and do all things, and also work right and so the people who have been unemployed where you know between 30 to 40 million Americans are unemployed if not more it's had devastating impacts and then if you go down to specific levels what we're talking about New York City of looking at those who have the means to either protect themselves or live in situations where they can avoid they're not frontline workers right they're not part of the frontline workforce versus those that are so if we looked at the New York State Controllers offers 75% of frontline workers so those are oftentimes childcare providers transit workers grocery store clerks you know Uber and Lyft driver so 75% are people color. And so when you say stay at home or social distance it's very difficult for certain populations to do that. Or if you're in a situation where there's overcrowding we know New York City is extremely expensive or you're talking about another city around the world that kind of cost and the things that people do to survive. Whether it be extended families whether be friends what what have you we all know those stories. Again, that becomes a problem so for me those are all the things that it's exposing the real question is then how as a society do we respond to that right. Do we sort of just say let's just keep moving on the economy can stop I mean if you look at CNBC or Wall Street or what pandemic what inequality what I mean you know I I'm always I always like to see what's happening in the in the financial. So then it's clear that people are living different realities right and so when we go to have a conversation whether it be through social media or or forums and this is why I think you know universities play such an important role right now. Where are people getting their like where people to share their experiences of like, well you see New York may be great for you but it's awful for me because of these reasons that we know it's a wonderful city. So as we think about the future. We have we have to also think about technology and surveillance, we have to think about space. So even in a time of a global pandemic how do we reimagine space in a city. Do we still need all the cars clogging up all our streets, or can we think of something different of having creating new plazas for people to come out and interact and I know within GSEP. You know I'm not going to pretend to know more than many of our great students and my other colleagues across the different disciplines that have been all over this information all over this issue and are coming up with wonderful solutions and I and I remember doing the final reviews for studio I mean just my they were just mind blowing all the ideas that our students had and faculty around how we can reimagine the city. So there's that but then you know I also wonder from an urban planning perspective if you think about people social distancing are working for a home. I'm hearing obviously has a big impact on commercial real estate and the real estate market in New York and other places might certainly Silicon Valley. I'm wondering what the long term consequences might this might this have, but I also worry about employers saying, you know, we're actually fine with 30% less workforce, we're actually doing okay right. But then what's happening in the fall when the parents kids don't go to school, or it's so, you know, it's really difficult to say I will I will tell you I took a very important I conducted a very important scientific poll with my students. And they, and in the spring and I asked how many of you given the situation plan to leave cities and not one person. Raise their hand obviously it's a bias sample, but not one person so it tells me there's something that draws us the cities. Certainly, there's the life of the city interacting with people. It's the system of the subway and buses and whatnot. So there's something magical about cities and wonderful about cities and there's also the other side but I don't know, long term will this really impact it may slow that you know, obviously people moving to cities some people are going to move out, but will it, you know will New York so be New York to New York from now absolutely I think so. It's also been really fascinating because on the one hand right cove it had this effect of depleting cities and voiding them, and then black lives matter, and the move, you know, and the protests and this kind of life and solidarity and, and you know public space you know like at the heart of social political, you know transformation and so these these two things are obviously connected but sort of intention to reclaim actually public to reclaim the physical as crucial to advancing you know, equity racial equity democracy, you know that in the end it came down to, we have to be together in public space and that's been such a powerful reassertion of the physical of the public space and I think what you're mentioning is fascinating in terms of how do we then take these two things together and we think the relationship of infrastructure to housing to our door right someone who has a balcony is going to do better than someone doesn't have a back and I mean these little these little details that come down to how do you you know all these old questions of light and air and you know suddenly take on a real urgency again of you know what what you know how do we create communities that sort of can sustain one another. So, that's right and I mean if you look at obviously the all the data coming out of around COVID-19 and who's being impacted right so we saw how obviously communities of color as I mentioned in vulnerable population are being devastated in many places where there be New Orleans, New York, Chicago, I can go on and on and certainly you see what's happening now with the data coming in from South America. And then you you then put in as you said, of seeing I mean it's the same story the same nightmare of police brutality of the murdering of George George Floyd, and you know it just you know many people ask me what how like that George Floyd was the you know it was, it was, it was already a fire that was burning underneath right underneath the ground and that was just the final thing that people just enough to not mean at some point you have to start looking at what's happening in society. And what I say and that's why I really think that what we're studying in our disciplines are so critical and I obviously everyone thinks that and I think there are many but you know we're we're we're in the GSAP world right now so just I want to I want to put a qualifier out there is space and how people interact or don't interact I mean I remember when I was living in the Bay Area in Berkeley, and with the rise of Silicon Valley there are people I knew didn't even have to interact with people anymore. They do or lift or they have a private cars, they didn't take public transit transportation start bringing up questions of like should we even fund transfer take right and obviously that's crazy. And so what we need to think about is the questions around the protest that we see now. Certainly around the, you know, anti black racism racism, obviously in general, is how do we use our tax dollars. How do we use our funding, you know, just overall or prioritize our funding for various things how much of it goes into actual community investment. How much of it goes into education how much it goes into supporting a family that's working or a single parent or what would have you I mean there are many ways to prioritize how we think about our funding and the kind of society that we want to see. And one of the most important things around that is our communities and I bring that more I'm using the word community more broadly but our housing our infrastructure, the schools, the social services, the open spaces, access, I mean it just raises a whole host of things. And we're all angry right I hope people are are furious and you know 2020 has been one hell of a year for everyone but it's a year we will never forget and the question is as a society and as people. How do we respond to this challenge right and that's, I would hate a year from now five years from now 10 years from now or say we're having this conversation looking back on and I'm looking back on my career. I would hate to keep doing the same research I'm doing now and so talking about these great inequalities and inequities and injustices and so forth. And just have a collection of books and articles that just document what great researchers before me have done and before them and so forth I would love to sit back and be old as I joke with my students and be sitting at home and see them on TV or see their TV's or their elected officials and know that they're actually changing the world and doing the things that we've talked about in the classroom, but taking a step further innovating in ways that my brain can even conceptualize because you know I'm at a point in my life where you're stuck in your ways and certain certain point and that's what the young people are for to come and to shake you up and to push it further and go further and further and further. Well, before I want to make sure we open it up for some questions. But I just want to make a leap to, you know, not a leap but I think what what what COVID, what what black lives matter what, you know, all of this is highlighting the intertwining between environment right also between climate change and how climate change is necessarily going to impact, you know, underserved communities, communities of color vulnerable communities black people you know I mean like, like anyone in the world who is sort of vulnerable is going to be significantly impacted by climate change and so I wanted to kind of tie because that is also at the center of your work and I think at the center of what you where you're taking the program the question of environmental justice and how these two things are connected and that this notion that we actually might not, we won't be able to address climate change if we don't address these inequities socially and along kind of questions of racial equity and no I'm glad that's another great question, which is why you know you're who you are like when you think about obviously everything we're dealing with this is is intense but you know as I say probably the one one of the most important things in our lives right now is climate change and the impact of climate change on hope for all of us. And you know I've been over the last few years, I'd say the five years or so really dive in deep more into the circular economy circular city work. And I think that as we start to dive in you see we have some real challenges with our systems right many are our students that we attract to GSAP. This is what they're passionate about they've been doing in the real world and and what not or they'll go out and do it. And if you start to see how the question is will the art capitalist system the way it's structured. Does it, in fact, you know, is it is it compatible with the kind of lifestyle we want right, not saying to change I'm not saying that we have to overthrow capitalism or some, but the way it's structured right we know that it's not a free market so to speak here is that it's actually regulated, there are laws or regulations and Wall Street or businesses run in trouble there's government that continually bells them out. So the real question is then is we can have a say so in that. And as we think about a circular economy or circular city where there's zero waste. And we really start to think about real carbon emissions and, and so, and how we put a price tag on things. That's why I think the real important work begins as we start to think about well what is a price for a ton of carbon I mean many of the brilliant minds of the world are working on that at Columbia wall projects I was working with colleagues that are trying to figure that out to to basically take direct direct air capture of carbon out of the air and put in basalt rock off the coast of Canada as a pilot project but at the end of the day as you start to think about whether it be fast fashion, whether it be the building materials that we can you know use for our buildings. Whether they're working or not working. There are many opportunities to engage from the product level where they were talking about the design of shoes to computers to buildings and neighborhoods and so forth and, and really thinking about how do you put a price on some of the things that a traditional economist might say, you know it's hard to price or we don't know because we're focusing on either shareholder profits and whatnot I think we have to start thinking about what is the price of society, what is the price for what is the price for it not being there any longer. Right and so you look at the work of many great colleagues at Columbia that I've been chatting with and they're trying to really think about those things of what happens when you don't have open space what happens when you know we're not we're not replenishing our force and so forth I mean, all of what we all in this zoom gathering understand but it's taking a step further and really saying how do you implement it it's another thing to talk about it, but a city like New York or Mumbai or Beijing or what have you how do you actually go about implementing in a way that you could actually see tangible results and not doing it from it from an ivory tower perspective meaning it's easy for me to sit here today and say these are all things we have to do with it. Well guess what for every choice we make those are jobs that are lost. Those are families that are hurt. Those are right so you have to do a trade off to say if you have this option, or if you make this decision, what other ways are we helping other people have other options to do other things. So, yeah, I'm muted. Yes. And we're how we on time right I don't have. We have about 20 minutes. So, I know that we're going to take questions. Laila did you want to. How we, or how we doing the questions. So we'll take questions in the chat. I encourage anyone who would like to ask a question to type it into the chat and then I will read it into into the meeting we want to make sure that we are accommodating of folks who are just on the phone. So if anyone has a question for Dr. Hudson or for Dean Andraus, please go ahead and type it into the chat now. Did you want to do the presentations, you know why don't I why don't I just talk I could just do a break while people think of questions why don't I just give you an overview of the lab. That'll be great. Yeah. I think I think that's the approach you know I've talked a lot about sort of the theory and practice like let's world so Laila if you don't if you don't mind putting it up I can just I'll go through it briefly with the Urban Community Health Equity Lab which is based in GSAP and house in GSAP it really is meant to break down the barriers and academia the silos so it's it's it's looking at architecture is architecture and design historic preservation sociology public health, what have you, and it's to work with people across those disciplines not only within the Academy but also in the real world and globally so thinking about scale. And I really focus on three areas and Laila you can, I don't know if I'm in control but you could just move it forward, and I'll go through that I've talked about my research but I focus on really three areas within the lab, the built environment and health. Community development and urban sustainability or circular economy is kind of a second area. And the third is as law and governance so Laila if you go to the next slide. You can go to the next slide. So with the built environment natural environment and health it goes to what much of what I was discussing today is really thinking about housing transportation parks open space infrastructure. All of the things that matter for our cities are metropolitan areas and in why it's important obviously for health. I am involved with a National Science Foundation proposal that's looking at bio infrastructure for New York City and if we are successful. I hope I don't jinx ourselves by by putting stuff but you know if we are successful it would be a seven year study to look at New York City and the five boroughs and looking at the interplay of sort of the natural environment the built environment, looking at different species and so forth, you know, and greenery and so forth. So, next slide. Some of the, some of the things I've been focusing on within this area is really housing and health so as as the Dean mentioned earlier, my interest in gentrification health more specifically and so a student who's a doctor student who's coming in Carol and I have written, she was a master's student in public health a couple years ago at Columbia and now she's coming as a doctor student, but we published a chapter in a book that's coming out in the urban public health. A research toolkit for practice and impact that'll be on Oxford University Press but it's really looking at gentrification health and thinking about the big questions and the methodologies that we should be exploring that area. And then most recently with another former student of ours, Alexandra Moskovitz, we wrote an article, Urban Health and the Encyclopedia of Environmental Health. That was sort of a big article, but to talk about the sort of the future of urban health, the big challenges, the areas that we should be focusing on and that just came out at the end of last year. And then obviously interested in COVID-19 and whatnot. So next slide. I won't spend a lot of time on this, but because there's a lot on the web that you read about this but I have a Columbia's President's Global Innovation Fund grant that works with the Santiago Global Global Center, Columbia Global Center to look at disaster management recovery. If you want to go to the next slide, Lila. So these are some of our partners that we're really working at the government level, the university level and also community level to look at how a community response after a disaster. So in the case, Lila, you can just keep clicking. In the case of Tolca, a small community in southern Chile about three hours south of Santiago and Santa Olga, which you see here. You can stop there for a second where a fire came through an informal settlement and within 24 hours wiped it out completely. There are about 10 deaths and obviously people lost everything and now my students and I have been working with Minbu as well as Onami, which is Minbu is like the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the United States. Onami is like their FEMA, so to speak. And we've been working with them and colleagues at the Catholic University to kind of address, look at like the impacts in this community. But one of the things that my students found through some of their research was after these big disasters, it's women who come up and do the organizing. They do the planning. They feed the community. They are on top of what's happening in terms of the health outcomes and so forth. So it's really women who are at the backbone and I'm sure all the women on the call on the Zoom are like, of course it's us. But to document that and to really see it in the kind of labor, the dual labor that they're doing, they have jobs. And in some cases one person even quit their job because they were so committed to this work, but they have their main job. They have their home life where they have to do the cooking, cleaning, all those things and they're also doing the organizing. So it's quite remarkable to see the impact that residents have had in this community. And so these are older pictures, but if you go to GSAP's website, you'll see some of the newer information that's come out about how the development is coming along. And I had Shoshana Scheinfeld and Grace Dickinson who went as fellows for my lab last summer, which I paid for them to be there the whole summer to actually do a lot of this research with our colleagues. So go to the next slide. You can go to the next one. And then let me just talk about the economy and community development. So if you want to go to the next one, Laila, thank you. Thank you. So one last summer with a doctor student, Gayatri Kaural, we taught a workshop looking at circular cities, circular economy in London and New York. And what really came out of that was thinking about what would happen if, you know, it was a similar to a project that was involved with at Berkeley, but really thinking about an eagle village. But what would happen if you took a dilapidated housing development or even public housing or some housing that's obviously necessary in New York City and renovated it and make it actually a circular housing, right? And so to do all the things make it carbon neutral, put all the wonderful things in it, thinking about the different materials like our wonderful colleagues like David Benjamin and many others are working on in GSAP. To say what would happen if you use mycelium bricks or you did smart controls and gray water reuse and so forth. To renovate the building because whether it be public housing or some other type of building, we know there are issues with pest and lead and so forth. But then also tie that to a broader workforce program that says, look, at a time when 30 to 40 million people had to work, are there opportunities to take that and also train local residents and so forth. So obviously this is nothing new. We had Van Jones talking about this. We know AOC has been talking about this. So, but the idea is how do you then do that? But more importantly as a research, and I think this is where it's wonderful to be a researcher to say, well, do these things actually matter? Right. And so you could potentially do a longitudinal study that will look at one development that was been renovated and made into a circular type of housing. And this will be obviously a natural experiment because you couldn't do it, but if you were able to do that and then follow them over time. We can look at issues around health, meaning people's mental health, their physical health, their access to healthy foods. If you're to think about providing community gardens and whatnot, you could also look at educational attainment and outcomes. You could look at economic outcomes for residents. So there's a lot you could potentially do and I would see that this is the kind of project that obviously would go well beyond me in urban planning. But you would need colleagues in urban design and architecture and historic preservation and sociology and women's studies. These are the things that we can think about as scholars to say what would happen over three to five years? Could you show that there's some impact over time and what would this say about what we should be doing? Now, common sense tells you, of course, this would make a difference, but how do you document it to prove it? How can you honestly say, and we'll never be able to say 100% like this building me, but how could you then from the rigors of public health, the rigors of urban planning and architecture and all the things that we think about to say over time, this has made a difference. This is why, as I was saying earlier, why you need to make these investments. They may cost something upfront, but the long-term investment to society, the long-term financial investment for a city or a community is whatever it's going to be, but we know it can be a lot. So I'll stop there. And then I'll just say the last piece. Moira O'Neill and I, but certainly the work she's been doing has been focusing on the circular economy and food systems in California and also thinking about what's happening globally. So this is a project, this particular piece that you see now is from the Elements Arthur Foundation that wrote a piece on cities in the circular economy for food. I've had conversations with them about this and not to put the Dean on the spot, but they've also invited Columbia GSAP to be a part of their global network of universities, which is a very prestigious network. And the Dean and I have been talking about that. And so the paperwork's been sent to me and now it's navigating through the bureaucracy of Columbia more broadly. But the nice thing is Columbia University has been invited to be a part of this. It's a relationship I've been able to build with the Elements Arthur Foundation. And we hope to get all of GSAP students or as many as possible to be able to get involved in some way or at least know what's happening. So I'll stop there. Thank you. I didn't want to take up too much time. Okay, so we do have one comment in the chat. I wanted to just check with each of you quickly. Valerie, who's a current PhD has submitted a discussion or a point for discussion and I just wanted to possibly invite Valerie to unmute her microphone and participate. So I'm just going to give her that access now and ask her to unmute. Thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate it. Hi, Malo. Nice to see you both. I have to say, I'm a bit disheartened to attend a session on a vision for the future of the PhD program and not hear any discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on the Academy. So among myself and my colleagues, we've already seen searches solved, positions withdrawn, as well as just looking down the barrel of a job market that might not exist in the same way, or at all coming this fall. And while I think that many of us keep a foot in practice, I myself do quite a bit of community based research for nonprofit organizations and tenants, specifically in New York City. And that work is very important to me. I did enter this PhD program with the intention of becoming a faculty member, and that I think that's the case for a number of my colleagues. And that's looking to be increasingly unlikely. I'd also just like to add that while I do believe that when you get a PhD and you pursue a PhD, it's definitely a part of your identity and it's hard to disassociate your work from your life. I also think it's important to emphasize that it is a material reality that we collectively say, and that we, we start a PhD program with the intention of earning our livelihoods from this research. And I think a number of us feel very scared about what that looks like in the face of a COVID economy. So I would love to hear you speak a bit to that, if possible. Yeah, I think that I mean, obviously that's a great question. And by my not directly talking about the Academy and this is by no means minimizing the importance of it. It's more of, we don't know for me, it's we don't know we're in the middle of all of these things where are we going to have classes in the fall in person or not right we kind of have the answer to that maybe. But there's no been no official announcement. I think one might come out today from Columbia. I mean, for a year from now to years from now, it's hard to say it's having a major impact. I mean, my lack of not that I don't care about the issue is, I don't know. You know, it's hard to say we don't know. I think that when you pursue a PhD obviously you put a lot into it it costs a lot in terms of not just the physical the financial but family life social all those things and when I say it's part of why I am. It's a profession. It's a career what you're describing what you're asking about. And so I think that I think the most important thing that I've been thinking about is how we can support our students is certainly through mentoring and networking but right now it's networking and all those things are more important than ever because of some universities and certainly some firms I know are not in a position financially because there's uncertainty so when there's uncertainty they hold back on hiring they don't. They actually will say I'm looking for someone that does X, Y and Z quietly. It's not public, right. And so I think that that's an area that we can try to support you all in the real issue I think will be in another month or two to figure out where universities are going from going because as you know July one is the start of a new fiscal year for universities and what the financial realities are from what I'm hearing from all universities, even the Colombians the world the heart everyone's taking a huge hit. And the question is then what does that mean in terms of thinking about higher education. So there could be potentially and this is this is why I don't predict the future but there are these are the things that have been floating around. It doesn't matter as much if you have faculty in in your dis new at physically at your university. If there's a Valerie who's a phenomenal scholar who lives in New York, but could teach at a university elsewhere abroad. That's a possibility I know people are thinking about, maybe we can hire faculty elsewhere that could teach. They don't necessarily have to be there. That's a huge cost that's a huge savings for a lot of universities they don't have to worry about trying to find you housing at this moment and you may not want to do that but that's the rethinking of higher education and what it looks like. The other is, can you continue to provide this type of learning online for another year or so right if we're assuming a year to 18 months. We have a vaccine and we can start to do. What does that mean for the way we do research what does that mean for the way we teach the pedagogy I mean it changes everything and I think we're all obviously this happened mid semester. How do we adjust for that we faculty have been having lots of meetings over the summer and constantly about how we think about this you doctoral students are thinking about this. So I would say you know not to go on and on but it's just that because we don't we don't know we're in the middle of it. I think that it's important to advocate obviously for doctoral students. I think we'll have a better sense of things in a month or two I know that may not be a satisfying answer but we're in the middle of this. And the financial realities are not there and you know one other thing that may be more important than even cover 19 is this election. I think that the election will determine if you look at the big institutions would be the census were disease control the National Institutes of Health. You know we can go on and on NSF. All the big funding sources if they don't have the money to provide money for research or be able to support the kind of research that people are interested in that also is a huge threat to the future of academia. So we'll talk more I mean I've been thinking quite a bit about the doctoral program and certainly helping doctoral students I know that Liz and others are defending their dissertation this summer and they're thinking about these things and I it's a critical issue. It's a critical issue. And also the time and the clock and all those things it's it's not something we've forgotten about. Yes, all thinking about it. Yeah, that very hard and we realize it's been really really difficult and we are really trying to think about it. For sure. Okay with just a few minutes left on the clock here. There are no additional questions in the chat. So I thought that maybe Dean address you wanted to final comments to wrap things up. Yes, sure. I wanted to. Well, thank you. Thank you, Maulo. It's great to have you on the faculty is great to have you as I'm looking at a screen where only women are thinking it's a it's a, you know, it's I think it's a great. It's a very important, even though it is incredibly difficult time right now for for everyone certainly for for students for doctoral students for incoming students for faculty for staff for it's very difficult in terms of the future of higher education, although I am hopeful that there will be some, some good changes that will come out of this because there is, you know, in the same way that Maulo you've been even, you know, questioning what kind of society what kind of world do we want to live in I think we have similar questions that we can offer higher education and, you know, what kinds of transformation we will see in the coming month in the coming future and I'm. I really have great faith. I have more faith in urban planners than I do in architects to transform the world in terms of, you know, not so much. I think this process oriented thinking, you know, is really something that is crucial right now. How do we engage with uncertainty, and I think, Malo, you, you have been doing this through your work. And even in today's kind of conversation not offering answers but offering ways to approach the question is kind of crucial. I wanted to thank you. I'm excited to see, you know, how these difficult times are going to shape both the program and the school in new ways in terms of how we think about our disciplines and how we practice in new ways as well. Well, thank you for the opportunity and, you know, and for the doctoral students and those who have joined I mean it's a, it's a very challenging time but I know that you've been committed all these years free to the craft and it's, you know, it's pushing forward and trying to find a way to address some of these issues and also obviously thinking about your life and your career and and all those things incredibly important time. So thank you everyone for joining and to be continued in one form or another, hopefully in a hybrid form. That's my hope for the fall.