Robert E. Lang -
Co-Director
 Robert E. Lang is Co-Director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and Director of Urban Affairs and Planning-Alexandria in Virginia Tech’s School of Planning and International Affairs. Dr. Lang is also the new Editor of the scholarly journal Housing Policy Debate.
In the spring of 2007, Dr. Lang was named a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. In 2006, he was a Visiting Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University. He is currently a Fellow of the Urban Land Institute, and was a 2008 Fulbright Fellow at the Ecole Normale Superior in Paris. Dr. Lang was also recently a Planning and Development Fellow of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a Visiting Fellow of the University of California. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Dr. Lang was Director of Urban and Metropolitan Research at the Fannie Mae Foundation in Washington, DC.
Dr. Lang received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Rutgers University, where he also taught sociology and urban studies. He was a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. Dr. Lang’s research specialties include, suburban studies, demographic and spatial analysis, housing and the built environment, and metropolitan governance. He has authored over 100 academic and professional publications on a wide range of topics, and has developed many new urban planning concepts such as “Boomburbs,” “ Edgeless Cities,” and “Megapolitan Areas.”
Dr. Lang’s research is featured regularly in the USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report and reported on by NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and ABC World News Tonight. Dr. Lang’s work includes the book Edgeless Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropolis, which is published by the Brookings Institution Press. He is also co-author of three edited volumes on the census titled Redefining Urban and Suburban America: Evidence from Census 2000, also by the Brookings Institution Press. Dr. Lang’s newest book titled Boomburbs: the Rise of America’s Accidental Cities was published in April 2007.
Casey Dawkins - Co-Director
 Dr. Casey Dawkins is currently Co-Director of the Metropolitan Institute, Director of the Virginia Center for Housing Research, and an Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech. His current research focuses on metropolitan housing market dynamics; the causes, consequences, and measurement of residential segregation; and the link between land use regulations and housing affordability. He has written two books and over 20 refereed journal articles and book chapters on these topics. Dr. Dawkins was recently awarded an Urban Scholars Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to examine the impact of racial segregation on racial disparities in the transition to first-time homeownership. Other organizations sponsoring Dr. Dawkins’ research include the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the National Association of Realtors, the Center for Housing Policy, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He is co-guest editor of two special issues of Urban Geography focusing on the measurement of residential segregation and neighborhood change, is an associate editor of the journal Housing Policy Debate, and serves on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of the American Planning Association.
Heike Mayer -
Co-Director
Dr. Heike (pronounced Hi-ka) Mayer is Co-Director of the Metropolitan Institute and associate professor in the Urban Affairs and Planning program at Virginia Tech’s Alexandria Center. She studied the University of Konstanz (Germany) and received a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Urban Studies from Portland State University. Her research interests focus on the factors shaping the economic competitiveness of cities and regions. In particular, she examines the internal strengths a city or a region has to develop its economy, leading to so-called endogenous development. Heike focuses on three themes, each addressing certain aspects of the endogenous potential: 1) knowledge regions, 2) entrepreneurship and 3) place-making and competitiveness in small towns (with Dr. Paul L. Knox). Heike’s research has been funded by a variety of institutions such as the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, The Brookings Institution, the Small Business Administration, Virginia Economic Development Partnership, and Arlington County, Virginia. Her work has been published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Urban Affairs, Economic Development Quarterly, Economic Development Journal, and by the Brookings Institution. Heike co-directs the Economic Development Studio @ Virginia Tech (with Dr. John Provo). She is a native of Germany and she enjoys whitewater kayaking, traveling, and hiking.
Paul Knox -
International Director
 Paul Knox is International Director and currently a University Distinguished Professor and Dean of the College of Architecture & Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. When he came to the university in 1985, he served as full professor in the Dept of Urban Affairs & Planning, and later was appointed Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College. A prolific writer, Knox is the author of 15 books, several of which have been published in translation, and numerous book chapters and articles in scholarly journals.
In 2000, he was bestowed honorary membership in the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects (VSAIA.) This honor recognizes individuals of esteemed character who are not eligible for membership in the Society, but who have rendered distinguished service to the profession of architecture or to allied arts and science within the domain of the Society. Knox was also the first dean invited to serve on the Virginia AIA Board in a new director's position that rotates among the chief academic officers of Virginia 's schools of architecture, including the University of Virginia and Hampton University.
Knox holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Sheffield, England. He has secured more than $500,000 in research grant awards from more than a dozen foundations and government agencies.
Peter J. Taylor -
Associate Director - World Cities
 Peter Taylor, Associate Director, heads the Globalization & Comparative Metropolitan Research for MI. Taylor serves as Professor of Geography and is a former Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Loughborough University in England, where he co-directs the Globalization and World Cities Research Group and Network (GaWC). The GaWC's mission is to stimulate relational studies of world cities and to make the resulting data accessible to the public. Recent papers on world cities are currently posted on the web at the GaWC Homepage.
Taylor first visited Virginia Tech in 1992-93 as the C. C. Garvin Endowed Visiting Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences. While in Blacksburg, Taylor worked with CAUS Dean Paul Knox to coordinate and host a conference on world cities, from which stemmed a variety of topic-related publications, and the formation of the GaWC. He is founding editor of Political Geography and was editor of Review of International Political Economy. His best-selling book is Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State and Locality .
Theodore (Ted) Koebel -
Associate Director - Fair Growth
 Dr. C. Theodore (Ted) Koebel is the Director of the Center for Housing Research and Professor of Urban Planning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is a frequent author on housing market trends, affordable housing, and housing policies and programs. He has worked extensively with developers, state and local agencies, and housing advocates in the provision of affordable housing and community development. Dr. Koebel has over 20 years experience in senior management at research institutes. He has directed research sponsored by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Association of Realtors®, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and several other organizations. Dr. Koebel is chairman of Community Housing Partners Corporation, an affordable housing development and management company serving the southeast United States . Dr. Koebel is a native of Cincinnati , Ohio and holds degrees from Xavier University , the University of Cincinnati , and Rutgers University .
Joseph Schilling -
Associate Director - Green Regions
 Joe Schilling is the Associate Director for Green Regions at the Metropolitan Institute, looking at innovative ways of creating environmentally sustainable regions through better building and community design. Schilling also provides community and non-profit organizations, government, and business leaders with strategic policy guidance and programmatic assessments in such areas as vacant property revitalization, brownfields redevelopment, smart growth, zoning code reform, active living, and military base encroachment.
Prior to joining the Institute, Schilling directed the community and economic development programs for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) focusing on local governments and the intersection of land use laws and policies as they relate to smart growth and the community revitalization. Together with Smart Growth America and the Local Initiative Support Corporation, he helped launched the National Vacant Properties Campaign as a forum to raise national awareness, coordinate research, and provide technical assistance to communities combating the decay caused by vacant properties. Schilling continues to serve as the Campaign’s Director of Research and Training and work directly with communities on vacant property assessment.
Professor Schilling has written on a variety of community and economic development issues. He completed a series of case studies on the technical tools that local governments and communities can use to revitalize vacant and abandoned buildings, Vacant Properties: Where Broken Windows Meet Smart Growth (2002). Professor Schilling teamed with Charlie Bartsch from the Northeast Midwest Institute to document the lessons learned from EPA’s original 16 Showcase Communities Brownfields Blueprints (2001).
Thomas W. Sanchez -
Fellow
Dr. Thomas W. Sanchez is Director and Associate Professor of Urban Planning Program in the College of Architecture + Planning at the University of Utah. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. He holds a PhD in City Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Prior to Virginia Tech, Dr. Sanchez taught urban planning at Iowa State University, Portland State University, and Virginia Tech. His research has been in the areas of transportation, land use, residential location behavior, and questions of social equity in planning – with research being sponsored by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Fannie Mae Foundation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Brookings Institution, the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, and state departments of transportation. His book on transportation equity (co-authored with Marc Brenman) The Right to Transportation: Moving to Equity, will be published by the American Planning Association in 2007.
Katrin Anacker -
Research Assistant Professor
 Katrin Anacker is a Research Assistant Professor at the Metropolitan Institute, the Senior Editor of Housing Policy Debate and the Conference Manager of A Suburban World? Global Decentralization and the New Metropolis. She has published in Urban Geography, the Journal of Urban Technology, FOCUS, and in Petermanns Geographische Mitteillungen. Her research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at The Ohio State University, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Urban Land Institute, Lambda Alpha International, and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy.
The former Fulbright Fellow graduated in June 2006 with a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the Ohio State University. In her dissertation Katrin analyzed property values in the mature suburbs. Her dissertation won the Real Estate Research Prize of the German Real Estate Academy at the University of Freiburg/Germany. Katrin was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Metropolitan Institute in academic year 2006/2007 before being appointed as Research Assistant Professor.
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