Willow Lung-Amam

Willow Lung-Amam is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution. She also serves as Associate Professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she also serves as Director of Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and Director of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network.

Dr. Lung-Amam’s research focuses on how urban and suburban policies and plans contribute to and can address social inequality, particularly in neighborhoods undergoing rapid racial and economic change. She has written extensively on suburban poverty, racial segregation, immigration, residential and commercial gentrification, redevelopment politics, and neighborhood opportunity, including her book Trespassers? Asian Americans and the Battle for Suburbia. She is currently working on a book on equitable development politics in the Washington, DC, suburbs.

Dr. Lung-Amam is a regular contributor to Bloomberg’s CityLab. Her research has also appeared in various journals, books, and popular media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, National Public Radio, New Republic, and Al Jazeera. It has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Justice, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Enterprise Community Partners, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and other government agencies and private foundations.

Dr. Lung-Amam holds a Ph.D. in landscape architecture and environmental planning from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.C.P. in urban studies and planning from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a B.S. in comparative studies in race and ethnicity from Stanford University.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning; University of California, Berkeley
• M.C.P. in Urban Studies and Planning; University of Maryland, College Park
• B.S. in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity; Stanford University

ADDITIONAL EXPERTISE AREAS

• Racial Segregation
• Gentrification
• Urban Redevelopment
• Affordable Housing
• Community Development

CURRENT POSITIONS

• Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning Program; University of Maryland, College Park
• Director, Community Development at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education; University of Maryland, College Park
• Director, Small Business Anti-Displacement Network; University of Maryland, College Park