About the Program

The 21st century will be an urban century with more people around the world residing in metropolitan regions than in any other form of human settlement. This urbanization is taking place in both the global North and the global South. Its implications are widespread: from environmental challenges to entrenched patterns of segregation to new configurations of politics and social movements. The Global Metropolitan Studies Initiative is concerned with this urban condition. This multidisciplinary endeavor brings together numerous faculty and supports research and houses graduate and undergraduate curricula. It is one of a handful of strategic initiatives selected by the UC Berkeley campus to mark a new generation of scholarship and to consolidate an emerging academic field.

The objective of the designated emphasis (DE) is to encourage and support multidisciplinary doctoral-level education and research on global metropolitan issues. Multidisciplinary training will be provided through a wide range of course offerings as well as through participation in seminars and conferences organized by GMS.

The Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies is for selected UC Berkeley PhD students with interest in metropolitan and regional issues. Students may come from any discipline across campus. The designated emphasis provides students with certification as well as with a context for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and development of research.

Visit Program Website

Admissions

Applicants must already be enrolled or accepted into an existing PhD program at Berkeley (master’s students and students at other institutions are not eligible). Students should apply at least two semesters before the PhD qualifying examination.

Interested students must apply for the designated emphasis. They are selected on the basis of academic qualifications, appropriateness of their interests to the program's teaching resources, and the enrollment capacity of the required courses.

Admission to the GMS Designated Emphasis is determined by the GMS co-chairs. Applications are due one week prior to the last day of the fall and spring semester.

The GMS DE application, and list of additional required documents, can be found here.

Designated Emphasis Requirements

Curriculum

Students in the designated emphasis program must complete two core courses required for the designated emphasis.

In addition to the two core courses, students in the Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies are required to take three additional courses for graduate credit on topics in metropolitan studies. Students must either select from the GMS - DE Electives List or petition for an outside course from the GMS Co-Directors. DE Electives must be taken for graduate credit unless otherwise noted on the Electives List. No more than one elective course for the DE can be taken from the student’s home department. Note that not every course will be offered in any given year.

Elective courses should be completed prior to advancing to candidacy. Students may substitute no more than one course not on the list, with the approval of the Curriculum Committee. 

Qualifying Exam

The student’s PhD qualifying exam committee must include at least one member of the Global Metropolitan Studies Graduate Group core faculty, who will evaluate the student’s knowledge related to the designated emphasis.

Once the student has completed the Application for the Qualifying Exam and the GMS qualifying exam checklist (located in the student handbook), they should submit both forms to the GMS DE graduate office in 226 Wurster Hall for the head graduate adviser’s signature.

Dissertation

The student’s dissertation topic also must be related to Global Metropolitan Studies and the dissertation committee must include at least one member of the GMS Graduate Group core faculty who can evaluate the dissertation from that perspective. 

Courses

Global Metropolitan Studies

Faculty and Instructors

+Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Charisma Acey, Assistant Professor. Access to water, sanitation, and other basic services, local and regional envirnonmental sustainability, public participation and collaborative governance.
Research Profile

Christopher Ansell, Professor. Political science, social movements, political sociology, network analysis, organization theory, public administration, political parties, Western Europe.
Research Profile

Sarah F. Anzia, Associate Professor. U S local and state politics, public sector unions, women in politics, public employee pensions.
Research Profile

Alexandre M. Bayen, Professor. Modelling and control of distributed parameters systems: large scale infrastructure systems, transportation, water distribution.
Research Profile

Teresa Caldeira, Professor. Comparative urban studies, urbanization in the global south, social theory, ethnography qualitative methodology.
Research Profile

Anthony J. Cascardi, Dean of Arts & Humanities. English, comparative literature, literature, Spanish, Portuguese, philosophy, aesthetics, early modern literature, French, Spanish Baroque.
Research Profile

Ralph Catalano, Professor. Mental health services, economic antecendents, stress related illness.
Research Profile

Karen Chapple, Professor. Poverty, economic development, regional planning, metropolitan spatial patterns, labor markets, community development, neighborhood change, gentrification.
Research Profile

Sharad Chari, Associate Professor. Social theory, political economy, development, agrarian studies, labor and work, racial/sexual capitalism, Black radical tradition, biopolitical struggle, oceanic humanities, photography, South Asia, South Africa, Indian Ocean.
Research Profile

Daniel Chatman, Associate Professor. Land use and development policies, public transportation services, travel patterns and residential choices of immigrants to the U S .
Research Profile

Stephen Collier, Professor. Soviet urban planning and post-Soviet urban and social welfare transformation, infrastructure and politics, neoliberalism and governmental rationality, emergency government in the United States, urban vulnerability and resilience, climate change.
Research Profile

C. Greig Crysler, Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, CED. Architecture, geopolitics of architectural discourse, globalization and social production of the built environment, architecture and identity.
Research Profile

Iryna Dronova, Assistant Professor. Urbanization, remote sensing, spatial analysis, urban heat exposure, green infrastructure, resilience, restoration, wetland and urban landscape ecology.
Research Profile

Frederico S. Finan, Associate Professor. Applied microeconomics, development economics, political economy.
Research Profile

Daniel Fisher, Associate Professor. Social-cultural anthropology, media, music and sound, photography and cinema, Australia.
Research Profile

Karen T. Frick, Associate Professor. Transportation policy and planning, major infrasctructure projects, American politics and conservative views about planning.
Research Profile

Mia Fuller, Associate Professor. Anthropology, Italy, fascism, urban design, architecture, Italian colonialism.
Research Profile

Ashok Gadgil, Professor. Drinking water treatment, innovation, social placement of technology, systems thinking, energy efficiency, global impact, developing world.
Research Profile

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Assistant Professor. Development economics, urban economics, subway infastructure, rural land tilting, road infrastructure, crime, and political economy.
Research Profile

Maria Paz Gutierrez, Associate Professor. Natural materials innovation, resilient buildings, multiscale design.
Research Profile

Mark Hansen, Professor. Transportation economics, policy and planning, air transportation, public transportation .
Research Profile

Eva Harris, Professor. Molecular virology, pathogenesis, immunology, epidemiology, scientific capacity building in developing countries.
Research Profile

David Henkin, Professor. America since 1607: 19th century, urban, cultural.
Research Profile

James Holston, Professor. Citizenship, Brazil, architecture, law, planning, the United States, cities, democracy, political and social anthropology, urban ethnography, the Americas.
Research Profile

Arpad Horvath, Professor. Life cycle assessment, LCA, sustainability, green design, transportation, water, construction, biofuels, energy, environmental management, infrastructure systems .
Research Profile

You-Tien Hsing, Professor. China, geography, political economy of development in East Asia, the process of international economic restructuring, cultural and institutional configuration in the processes of Taiwanese direct investment, growth in Chinese cities, business networks.
Research Profile

Daniel Kammen, Professor. Climate Change, Engineering, Environment, Energy, Renewable and Clean Energy, Energy Forecasting, Health and Environment, International R&D Policy, Race and Gender, Rural Resource Management.
Research Profile

Adib Kanafani, Professor of the Graduate School. Transportation economics, air transportation, transportation planning, transportation systems analysis, aviation policy and planning, urban and regional planning .
Research Profile

Randy H. Katz, Professor. Trusted and reliable network computing, smart cities, data science, smart buildings, smart grids.
Research Profile

G. Mathias Kondolf, Professor. Ecological restoration, landscape architecture, environmental planning, fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, environmental geology, environmental impact assessment, riparian zone management.
Research Profile

Michel Laguerre, Professor. Globalization, information technology, urban studies.
Research Profile

Amy E. Lerman, Associate Professor. Politics, criminal justice, privatization, public opinion, and political behavior.
Research Profile

Elizabeth S. Macdonald, Professor. Urban design.
Research Profile

Rachel Morello-Frosch, Professor. Structural determinants of environmental health disparities, air pollution and perinatal outcomes, environmental justice, social movements, science, and environmental health policy-making.
Research Profile

Michael Nylan, Professor. Water, transport, monuments, urban China (early empires, 11th century, contemporary).
Research Profile

Aihwa Ong, Professor. Cultural anthropology, anthropology, transnationalism, citizenship, global cities, migration, Southeast Asia, urbanism.
Research Profile

Alison Post, Assistant Professor. Regulation, infrastructure, water and sanitation.
Research Profile

Paul M. Rabinow, Professor. Cultural anthropology, philosophy of human and life sciences, modernity, the contemporary, France.
Research Profile

Isha Ray, Associate Professor. Water and development, Gender, water and sanitation, technology and development, social science research methods .
Research Profile

Lee Riley, Professor. Molecular epidemiology, drug resistance in Gram-negative bacteria, tuberculosis, rapid diagnostic test development, field epidemiology and global health research focused on diseases of urban slums.
Research Profile

Daniel Rodriguez, Professor. Public transportation, urban sustainability, urban health, environment and health impacts of traveler behaviors Transportation, land development, and their health and environmental impacts .
Research Profile

Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, Professor. Poverty, gangs, crime, violence, race and ethnic relations.
Research Profile

Stefano Schiavon, Associate Professor. Sustainable building design, energy efficiency, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, ebergy simulation, post-occupancy evaluation.
Research Profile

Raja Sengupta, Professor. Transportation, wireless communications, inertial navigation for vehicle systems .
Research Profile

Sandra Smith, Associate Professor. Trust, urban poverty, joblessness, race and ethnic inequality, social capital and social networks.
Research Profile

Claire Snell-Rood, Assistant Professor. Family and community influences on health promotion, gender and mental health, social inequality, stigma and health, rural U S , and South Asia.
Research Profile

Kenichi Soga, Professor. Infrastructure sensing, geotechnical structures, ground engineering, soil and granular mechanics, deep geomechanics, energy and engineering sustainability, soil-bio interaction, geoenvironmental engineering.
Research Profile

Mark Stacey, Professor. Climate change, coastal erosion, critical infrastructure resiliency, fluid dynamics.
Research Profile

Nicolas Tackett, Associate Professor. Chinese elite society (9th to 11th century), Late Tang capital cities, Song-Liao border during the 11th century, death and death rituals.
Research Profile

Cihan Ziya Tugal, Associate Professor. Political sociology, social movements, religion, Islam and the Middle East, culture, poverty and class, social theory, ethnography.
Research Profile

Loic Wacquant, Professor. Urban inequality and marginality, incarnation and habitus, the penal state, ethnoracial domination, politics of reason, classical and contemporary social theory.
Research Profile

Paul Waddell, Professor. Urban economics, land use and transportation, urban simulation, urban informatics, visualization.
Research Profile

Joan Walker, Professor. Behavioral modeling, with an expertise in discrete choice analysis and travel behavior .
Research Profile

Jennifer Wolch, Professor. Sustainable urbanism, urban design and public health, poverty and homelessness, human-animal studies.
Research Profile

Winnie Won Yin Wong, Associate Professor. Labor and creativity, modern and contemporary art, intellectual property, China studies, consumer cultures.
Research Profile

Wen-Hsin Yeh, Professor. Asian history, East Asian studies, Qing and Modern China, Shanghai.
Research Profile

Emeritus Faculty

Robert B. Cervero, Professor Emeritus. Transportation planning, city and regional planning, transportation and land use, transportation and urban development, international transportation.
Research Profile

Karen Christensen, Professor Emeritus. Evaluation, intergovernmental relations, city and regional planning, housing policy, planning theory, organizational theory.
Research Profile

Jan De Vries, Professor Emeritus. Economics, demography, history.
Research Profile

Elizabeth A. Deakin, Professor Emeritus. Urban design, city and regional planning, transportation policy, planning and analysis, land use policy and planning, legal and regulatory issues, institutions and organizations, energy and the environment, new technologies.
Research Profile

Peter Evans, Professor Emeritus. Sociology.
Research Profile

Paul Groth, Professor Emeritus. Architecture, vernacular architecture, urban geography, suburban America, cultural landscape studies, housing (US).
Research Profile

Michael Hanneman, Professor Emeritus.

Judith E. Innes, Professor Emeritus. Innovation, governance, collaborative planning and policy making, regionalism, interpretive methods, complexity and adaptation.
Research Profile

Michael Southworth, Professor Emeritus. Management, analysis, design, city and regional planning, landscape architecture, environmental planning, morphology of the post-industrial city, design of public space.
Research Profile

Richard Walker, Professor Emeritus. Race, environment, urbanism, politics, geography, resources, economic geography, regional development, capitalism, cities, California, class.
Research Profile

Margaret M. Weir, Professor Emeritus. Political science, political sociology, sociology, American political development, urban politics and policy, comparative studies of the welfare state, metropolitan inequalities, city-suburban politics in the United States.
Research Profile