What's your academic background?
I practiced as an urban planner for 5 years in Australia. When I moved to Israel, I soon began to work with Professor Rachelle Alterman (PLPR Founder) – as a student, research assistant, and finally, researcher. Between my studies for MSc and PhD, I served as a researcher and Deputy Coordinator of the MARE NOSTRUM project – an EU-funded research project on regulation for ICZM (Integrated Coastal Zone Management). Following on from that project, together with Professor Alterman we co-edited a book titled Regulating Coastal Zones (Routledge, 2021, now Open Access), which details and compares coastal zone regulatory frameworks in 15 countries.
What are you passionate about?
Learning about different planning systems by asking detailed questions about their operation. You really must delve into the details in order to understand and successfully compare vastly different systems. I am also passionate about the process of data analysis. In comparative research, this involves identifying the parameters for comparison and comparing systems across those parameters. We are lucky to work in a field that allows us to “play” with various research methods – including both quantitative and qualitative methods – and I think that where possible, it is worth mixing methods to get the most out of the data.
What are you working on these days?
I am involved in several different research projects: At the Technion, I am working with Professor Nir Mualam on research into the integration of public facilities into private developments (“vertical allocations”). Another project is exploring shifts in power between central and lower levels of government. I am a researcher on the LANDTIME project that is being led by the Norway University of Life Sciences (NMBU – I met the project initiators at PLPR 2020!). Finally, at Tel Aviv University, I am working on a project that aims to assess the social mobility of public housing residents (and eligible individuals on the housing waiting list) in Israel. While the latter is not strictly a PLPR area of research, we do hope that the findings will inform future public housing policy.
What brings you to PLPR?
After moving from Australia to Israel, I began to learn that so much of what I had taken for granted in the Australian states’ planning law systems was so different in Israel. When I dug deeper, under the guidance of Professor Rachelle Alterman, I saw more and more differences in planning law cross-nationally, and I was curious to learn more. My first PLPR conference was actually one that I helped to organize when I was a Masters student – the 2014 conference in Haifa. My experience of that conference told me that PLPR is my academic home, so I volunteered to stand for ExCo elections as PhD coordinator. I did that role for two years, then moved on to be Secretary General for two years. I missed the 2022 and 2023 conferences and hope to return in 2024.
Anecdote: things we don’t know about you?
I have a diverse family background and a large extended family. On my mother’s side, my family have been in Australia since 1858. Before that they were of Polish origin, and in each generation added more diversity (e.g. my great-great grandmother was Dutch). On my father’s side, my family arrived in the Middle East in the 1920s. They came from Libya but before that, from Spain. |
