Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA, Associate Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Professor of Urban Planning. Her area of specialization is urban design, physical and land use planning. She holds degrees in architecture and urban planning and has published extensively on issues of inner-city revitalization, gentrification and displacement, cultural uses of public space, mobility and safety. Her research focuses on the public environment of the city, its physical representation, social meaning and impact on residents. She has served as a consultant to the Transportation Research Board, Federal Highway Administration, Southern California Association of Governments, South Bay Cities Council of Government, Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative, Mineta Transportation Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Greek government, and many municipal governments on issues of urban design, open space development, land use and transportation. Her research has been supported by the U.S. and California Departments of Transportation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mineta Transportation Institute, the Haynes Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, the Gilbert Foundation, the Archstone Foundation, and the AARP. She has published more than 100 articles and chapters and has co-authored or co-edited five books: Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form (UC Press 1998); Jobs and Economic Development in Minority Communities (Temple University Press 2006); Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space; Companion to Urban Design (MIT Press 2009); and The Informal American City: Beyond Taco Trucks and Day Labor (MIT Press 2014). Along with colleagues at UC Berkeley and UCLA she has initiated the Urban Displacement Project, which aims to understand the nature of gentrification and displacement in American cities, and help communities take effective action.