Lisa Kim Davis
Department of Geography
1255 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524
t: 310.206.6406
f: 310.206.5976
email: davis@geog.ucla.edu
office: 1165 Bunche Hall

EDUCATION

Yale University, B.A.
Johns Hopkins University, M.P.H.
Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My work focuses on urban geography,housing, and Korea. I am particularly interested in how urban inequality is reflected in or countered by the use of urban space such as by spatial patterns of residence. Current projects focus on affordable housing, urban community, local citizenship, popular and feminist perspectives on the built environment, gender and public space, and housing practices. I see the Korean peninsula as one dramatic crucible for contrasting ideas and trends found throughout the world.

In the recent past I have looked at the direct and indirect effects of hosting the Olympic Games on cities. I also have researched health policy responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and completed a master’s degree in public health. Early in my career I wrote about how arts education was changing struggling public schools and their city neighborhoods in the U.S. I have a long-term commitment to the comparative study of cities in terms of social and spatial opportunity and inequality; part of this entails the recording and analysis of historical geographies of housing and neighborhoods. In the 21st century world, linear models of development and regional frameworks are often only partially adequate for comprehending the city. Human geography provides a fascinating lens for studying the local and the universal simultaneously in a historically-informed manner, timely for making sense of our complex settlements.

AWARDS

Fulbright Scholar, 1990
Fulbright-Hayes Scholar, 2000