Dr. Fan is an associate professor of urban and regional planning in the School of Planning, Design, and Construction and the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations. In the past, Dr. Fan has served as a consultant/economist for UNU-WIDER and ADB. She has also served as a consultant/economist for United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and Asia Development Bank (ADB) regarding the innovation and economic development of emerging countries (China and India in particular) and urbanization in Asia.
Research Interests
- Urbanization
- Transitional economies
- Sustainability
- Climate change
- Southeast, East, and North Asia (SENA)
- Development of theories and empirical evidence on innovation
Current Projects
Dr. Fan’s current research, funded by NASA’s Land Cover and Land Use Change (LCLUC) program, examines 17 major cities of 7 transitional economies in Southeast, East, and North Asia (SENA), which also became the name of the project. Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, and the Asian part of Russia (Siberia) are all included in the SENA project.
These countries have experienced liberalization, macroeconomic stabilization, restructuring and privatization, and legal and institutional reforms over the past three decades. The project will synthesize the data and knowledge on urban sustainability to the socioeconomic transformation and changing climate in transitional economies in SENA.