Faculty

Patrick Murphy is the Faculty Director for the Urban and Public Affairs program. Patrick is particularly interested in public budgets and tax policy, with an eye toward fairness and sustainability. As a policy researcher, he has led a number of different applied projects for organizations such as the RAND Corporation, the University of Washington, and the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). He currently serves as the Director of Resource Equity and Public Finance for The Opportunity...

Professor Rachel Brahinsky teaches in the Urban and Public Affairs graduate program, the undergraduate Urban Studies program, and the Politics Department. She earned a PhD in geography from UC Berkeley, where she focused on the human and social geography of cities, with an emphasis on the politics of race and place. Her research and teaching center around the challenges of race and inequality in the context of rapidly changing American cities, with a longtime focus on the San Francisco Bay Area...

Kathleen Coll is a cultural anthropologist whose research and teaching focuses on immigration politics and policies, cultural citizenship, and grassroots community organizing in the U.S., with special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area. Her books include Remaking Citizenship: Latina Immigrants and New American Politics (Stanford University Press, 2010) an ethnography of Mujeres Unidas y Activas and immigrant women’s activism in San Francisco, a co-authored book Disputing Citizenship (Policy...

Keally McBride is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and is interested in issues of power and social change. Her recent research has focused on the dynamics of information technology within contemporary capitalism, but she has published books on punishment and policing, movements of decolonization, and colonialism and the rule of law. She teaches a broad array of courses that investigate local public policy, European politics, political economy, peace and conflict, and...

William (Billy) Riggs, Ph.D., AICP, LEED AP is a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Management and the Director of the Autonomous Vehicles and the City Initiative. He has worked in venture capital and management consulting and been an advisor to multiple companies and start-ups on technology, engineering, smart mobility and urban development. His experience also extends to academic administration, curriculum design, and finance having held academic appointments in city...

Dr. Saah has been broadly trained as an environmental scientist with expertise in a number of areas including: landscape ecology, ecosystem ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecosystem modeling, natural hazard modeling, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. He has used these skills to conduct research primarily at the landscape level in a variety of systems. Dr. Saah has participated in research projects throughout the United States and Internationally...

Tanu Sankalia is a tenured full professor in the Department of Art + Architecture, and coordinates the Urban Studies Concentration within the Environmental Studies Program. He teaches courses in urban planning and design, architectural and urban history, and architectural design. He was trained in urban design at UC Berkeley, and in architecture at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, from where he graduated with a gold medal for the best diploma thesis.

Professor Sankalia's research and...

Professor James Lance Taylor is from Glen Cove, Long Island. He is author of the book Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama, which earned 2012 "Outstanding Academic Title" - Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. (Ranked top 2 percent of 25,000 books submitted and top 8 percent of 7,300 actually accepted for review by the American Library Association). Rated “Best of the Best.” The hardback version sold out in the U.S. and the paperback version was...

Brian Weiner received his BA from Princeton University, and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He specializes in political theory (from the ancients to contemporary theory), American political theory, and public law. He teaches courses in the areas of political theory, law, and American politics. Professor Weiner also teaches Literature and Political Thought and Democratic Theory and Democratic Transitions. He is a member of the Honors Program in the Humanities, where...

Bikku Kuruvila, JD, MRP teaches a variety of interdisciplinary courses committed to analyses of law across multiple social contexts. Specifically, Professor Kuruvila offers courses in human rights and global change; gender and the law; cities, inequality and the law; introduction to legal systems (with attention to the laws of business) or business law; employment discrimination law; state and local government law; public finance and public sector strategy.

Professor Kuruvila has nearly 20...

Diana Negrín is a geographer, writer, and curator with a focus on identity, space, and social movements in Latin America and the United States. Her scholarship engages human and cultural geography, critical race theory, cultural studies, political ecology, and urban studies.

Professor Negrín has taught various classes and advised students in USF's Migration Studies and Urban and Public Affairs programs since 2013.

Tim Redmond has won more than 40 national and local awards in a four-decade career as an investigative and political reporter, much of that time at the San Francisco Bay Guardian. His work has also appeared in more than a dozen local and national publications. He teaches Journalism, Investigative Reporting, Political Reporting, and The Economics of Social Justice, among other courses. He has a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo.