Savannah Cox
Ph.D. Student - City and Regional Planning
- Research Interests/Specializations
Science and Technology Studies; Resilience; Urban Climate Governance; Economic Sociology
- Degrees
- M.A. International Affairs, The New School
- B.A. Political Science, B.A. Foreign Languages and International Studies, Bellarmine University
- Biography
I study the technologies and forms of expertise that cities use to constitute climate change as a problem that requires intervention. Specifically, I examine how these instruments—such as catastrophe models, financial risk assessments and ratings, and flood maps—become authoritative to urban planners and officials, as well as the assumptions and values that often undergird them. As planners typically employ these tools to inform future land use decisions and infrastructure investments, interventions inspired by the use of these devices inevitably interact with existing political and social terrains whose unique histories, possibilities, and needs may often go unaddressed or misunderstood by city officials. Thus, in my research I am equally invested in interrogating how climate risk-driven planning may incite (or attempt to curtail) novel forms of segregation, political claims- and counter claims-making, and insurgent citizenship in climate-changing cities. As a former journalist, I am deeply committed to producing work that is useful for activists, planners, journalists, researchers, and members of the general public who wish to better understand, and perhaps re-shape, the ways that cities often think, see, and act with respect to climate change.
E-mail me at savannah.cox@berkeley.edu.
- Courses Taught
CP 200: History of City Planning
- Awards + Recognition
- 2019 – recipient of Global Metropolitan Studies Summer Research Grant ($4,000)
- 2019-20 – recipient of the Blum Center for Developing Economies’ InFEWS Fellowship (NSF grant no. DGE-1633740) ($34,000)
- 2019 – recipient of U.C. Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies Conference Grant ($500)
- 2018 – recipient of U.C. Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning Travel Grant ($500)
- 2018 – recipient of U.C. Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies Conference Grant ($500)
- 2017 – 2022 recipient of University of California-Berkeley Fellowship for Graduate Study ($28,000 per year)
- 2015 – 2017 recipient of Julien J. Studley Grant for original research on resilience and urban planning in New York City ($12,500 per year)
- 2013 – 2015 recipient of The New School for Public Engagement Merit Scholarship ($25,000 per year)
- 2012 – 2013 recipient of the Spanish Ministry of Education Teaching Grant ($13,000)
- 2012 – winner of Fulbright Scholarship for English Teaching (declined)
- 2012 – winner of the Miguel de Cervantes Award for Excellence in Spanish Language and Culture
- 2011 – winner of Humana Foundation essay contest on human rights and women’s leadership
- Selected Publications
"Design and the scaling of politics" with Stephen Collier. Political Geography. 2019.
"Racializing Urban Resilience in Miami" with Kevin Grove. Article under review for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.
"Insurance and the Resilient City" with Stephen Collier. Article under review for special issue of Economy and Society.
"Rebuilding by Design in Post-Sandy New York" with Stephen Collier and Kevin Grove. Limn, 7. 2016.