IURD Spotlight: Principal Investigator Margaretta Lin
As a Principal Investigator at IURD, Margaretta Lin’s climate equity and environmental justice work focuses on the prevention of harm and centers grassroots leaders and movements that have been historically marginalized. Through IURD, Margaretta serves as the PI or Co-PI on multiple urban planning and policy innovation research projects to advance racial justice and healing. Margaretta, along with Professor Charisma Acey, the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, and Just Cities (the nonprofit that Margaretta co-founded) are examining the legacy of racism in California environmental, housing, and transportation policies and systems and designing public policy recommendations that address the structural roots of current injustices. Through Just Cities, Margaretta and her team are leading community-based technical assistance and community engagement on the City of Oakland’s General Plan including the Environmental Justice, Housing, Land Use, Transportation, Safety, and Open Space Elements. They are also providing backbone infrastructure and community based research support for BAAQMD and CBE’s AB617 air quality planning efforts in East Oakland.
Sponsored by IURD, Margaretta also serves as the PI of the nation’s first impact study of Fair Chance Housing laws, working with Professors Acey and Dan Lindheim (Goldman School of Public Policy, Aukeem Ballard (PhD Ed), Mariel Mendoza (MPP/MPH ‘22), and a team of Community Scholars, formerly incarcerated students. This study integrates community based participatory action research as well as methodologies to study the power of hope and love as anti-recidivism strategies.
Margaretta views these initiatives as opportunities to involve students and help train future planning and public policy leaders to dismantle the mindsets that maintain systems of racism, oppression, and harm. As the director of the Dellums Project on Racial Justice and Healing, a collaboration between IURD with Just Cities and the Center on Civility and Democratic Engagement at the Goldman School of Public Policy, Margaretta also mentors and trains first generation students. In addition, she teaches racial justice and healing in planning and policy courses at DCRP and the Goldman School of Public Policy.
For Margaretta’s bio, please visit: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/faculty-and-impact/faculty/margaretta-wan-ling-lin