51����

Office Hours

By appointment

Education

Ph.D., Syracuse University, 1998

Research

• Globalization
• Economic geography
• Urban geography
• Asia

My research interest includes globalization, diaspora communities, international labor migration, and Rust Belt cities. I am currently working on a research project examining urban restructuring in the U.S. Rust Belt, as part of the NEH-sponsored Rust Belt Humanities Labs. Particular attention is paid to local economic development efforts in former industrial cities of Ohio to see what attempts are made to reverse the decades-long trend of deindustrialization and why certain needs and interests are prioritized over others.

Another research project I have worked on is to examine the return migration of ethnic Koreans from Northeast China to South Korea. I have been awarded two National Geographic research grants to examine how this return migration has reshaped ethnic Koreans’ diaspora identity and relations with both the homeland and the host country. I have also looked into the spatial exclusion and access of Southeast Asian migrant workers to urban public places in Seoul. I have conducted a series of personal interviews with Filipino factory workers to hear about their spatial stories of exclusion and belonging in Seoul, a newly emerging migrant destination in East Asia where the importance of “actually existing” cosmopolitanism is yet to be recognized in urban planning and design.

Courses Taught

• GEOG 1310: Globalization and the Developing World
• GEOG 3260/5260: Urban Geography
• GEOG 3290/5290: World Economic Geography
• GEOG 3380/5380: Geography of Asia
• GEOG 6260: Seminar in Urban Geography – The Urban Poor
• GEOG 6290: Seminar in Economic Geography – Global Economic Restructuring
• T3 4400 Seminar in Wealth and Poverty

Representative Publications

2025 “The Diversity of Rust Belt Cities: Challenging the Single Story of Urban Decline,” Rust Belt Studies, 1

2024 “African Immigrant Women's Experiences of Maternity Care in the United States,” MCN, The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing, 49 (6), pp.341-347 (with R. Appiah-Kubi and L.B. Attanasio).

2018 “Promoting and controlling labor migration: South Korean state’s intervention for control in the temporary migrant worker program and its (un)intended outcomes,” Journal of the Korean Geographical Society, 53 (2), pp.229-246 (with Hyun-Joo Jung).

2017 “The global city and its discontents,” John Rennie Short, ed., A Research Agenda for Cities, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp.13-25

2008 Cities and Economies, London: Routledge. (with John Rennie Short)

Selected Student Projects

Shamsuddeen Magaji Bello, 2025, “Promises and Realities of Smart City Projects in Africa: The Abuja Centenary Economic City (ACEC) in Nigeria” (M.A. in Geography)

Sean Pierce, 2025, “The Gentrification Effects of Urban Greening in the East Side of Cleveland: The Euclid Beach Neighborhood Plan and Mobile Home Residents” (HTC in Environmental Studies)

Kendra Mckitrick, 2024, “Politics and Geography of Rightsizing in Downtown Toledo” (HTC in Geography)

Xander Stultz, 2024, “The Troost Divide: New Injustice Arising from Gentrification of Troost Avenue Neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri” (Honors in Geography)

Kandavith Nget, 2022, “Return and Reintegration of Cambodian Migrant Workers after Working Abroad” (M.A. in Geography)

Mckenney, Kaia, 2022, “Priced and Left Out by Green Gentrification: The Over-The-Rhine Neighborhood in Cincinnati” (HTC in Environmental Studies)