Dr. Ivonne Audirac teaches in the master’s and Ph.D. planning programs of the Department of Public Affairs and Planning at UTA’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs (CAPPA). Her current research is theory driven and interdisciplinary. It focuses on the social, ecological, economic, and policy dimensions of the processes of urbanization and urban development. She does collaborative international comparative research regarding globalization and urban restructuring resulting in shrinking cities—a 21st century perspective on urban decline, re-development, and city resilience. She is founding member of the Shrinking Cities International Research Network (SCIRN)—an international group of planning scholars and urbanists from across five continents. She has also conducted sponsored research on environment-behavior responses to non-motorized mobility in automobile-dependent urban areas as well as on aspects of universal design and transit. Other foci of her previous research relate to information technology, urban form and smart growth and to rural sustainable development.

Dr. Audirac served in the editorial board of the Journal of the American Planning Association (2001-2006); in addition to publishing numerous book chapters and refereed journal articles in planning and urban studies journals including the Journal of the American Planning Association, TRB, International Regional Review, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Progress in Planning among others, she published the edited books Rural Sustainable Development and Shrinking Cities South/North.

She has taught courses in planning history and theory, hypermobility and new urban mobilities, urban development and planning, community development, physical planning and urban design and advanced urban theory. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Florida and master’s degrees in urban and regional planning and in international development, respectively from the University of Florida and Colorado State University, and a five-year professional degree in architecture from Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM-Monterrey).