Professor Tony Travers
Tony Travers is Professor in the School of Public Policy and Director of LSE London.
His key research interests include local and regional government, elections and public service reform. Professor Travers’ knowledge is frequently sought by policy makers and he has advised a range of select committees and think tanks. He also provides expert analysis for broadcast and print media, regularly appearing on major television and radio networks.
Professor Christine Whitehead
Christine Whitehead is Emeritus Professor in Housing Economics at the London School of Economics and Deputy Director of LSE London.
She was also Director of the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research from 1990 to 2010. Christine is an internationally respected applied economist concentrating mainly in the fields of housing economics, finance and policy. She has worked with a wide range of international agencies as well as regularly for the UK government and Parliament. She was a specialist adviser to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee for many years. She was an advisor to the Letwin Review on Build-Out Rates and was a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Housing Commission. She is currently involved in a project for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on the costs of Temporary Accommodation. Her latest text, with Tony Crook, is ‘A Roadmap to a Coherent Housing Policy’ which is currently being revised as policies change. She was awarded the OBE for services to housing in 1991.
Kath Scanlon
Kathleen Scanlon is Deputy Director and Research Fellow at LSE London.
Kath has a wide range of research interests including comparative housing policy (across all tenures–social and private rented housing as well as owner-occupation), comparative mortgage finance, and migration. Her research is grounded in economics but also draws on techniques and perspectives from other disciplines including geography and sociology, and aims to improve the evidence base for policy decisions at national and local levels. She is widely published, and recently edited Social Housing in Europe, published by Wiley in 2014. She has worked with a number of national and international institutions including the Council of Europe Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and Denmark’s Realdania foundation.
Professor Ian Gordon
Ian joined the Department Geography & Environment as Professor of Human Geography in September 2000. Prior to this, he spent eleven years as Professor of Geography at Reading University, before which he taught in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Kent, where he directed the Urban and Regional Studies Unit. His main research interests have been in urban development and policies, spatial labour markets, migration and spatial interaction, particularly in the context of major metropolitan regions. He led the team carrying out the London ‘integrative city study’ for ESRC’s Cities, Competitiveness and Cohesion Programme. In April 2004 he was the academic convenor for the Leverhulme International Symposium at the LSE on The Resurgent City. He is currently a member of the Mayor’s Outer London Commission; and the Department of Communities and Local Government’s Regeneration and Economic Development Analysis Expert Panel.
Dr Alan Mace
Dr Alan Mace joined the Department of Geography & Environment at LSE in 2010. Prior to this, he combined practise and academic work. As a spatial planner in London, he worked on policy development and has considerable experience of community involvement in planning. He combined this with his role as Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, before which he was a Research Fellow at UCL. Alan’s research interests include planning cultures and socio-cultural aspects of housing including second homes and suburban cultures. He is also focused on planning policy in the UK, in particular, green belt, density and the use of Brownfield land. Alan also has a focus on London. He is part of the LSE London research group for which he organises an annual seminar series.
Dr Nancy Holman
Dr Nancy Holman is one of the programme officers for LSE London. She is currently an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and the Director of the MSc in Regional and Urban Planning Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Nancy joined the Department of Geography & Environment at LSE in August 2008 having previously managed the MSc in Housing and Regeneration in the Department of Social Policy. A planner by training she has a PhD in Urban Policy (University of Portsmouth, 1999) and an MSc in Community and Regional Planning (University of Texas, 1996). Her work deals primarily with issues of governance and local planning including sustainable development and community participation.
Martina Rotolo
Martina is LSE London’s Research and Communication Officer. She is currently a PhD Student in Planning Studies at UCL Bartlett School of Planning.
Martina graduated from LSE and holds a MSc in Regional and Urban Planning Studies in 2020. Her dissertation focused on the analysis of the policy drivers that led to the emergence of new local governance structures to tackle food poverty in London. Before joining LSE, she graduated in Public Policies at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome and worked in the fields of public affairs and social impact.
Adriana Gaganis
Adriana is a Research Assistant at LSE London.
Prior to this position, she worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She holds a BA in Human Geography and Urban Studies and has recently completed her MSc in Regional and Urban Planning Studies at the London School of Economics. Her research interests revolve around housing policy, homelessness, and migrant resettlement as it is experienced in the urban context. Her experience working in refugee camps in Greece between 2015 and 2017 has informed her interest in understanding the experience of vulnerable and unhoused populations.
Sarah Davis
Sarah manages the finance and human resources for LSE London.
Sarah is also the Finance & Resourcing Coordinator for LSE Cities research centre which she joined in 2009. She is an ACCA qualified accountant and holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Reading. Sarah also volunteers as the Finance and Admin Officer for EduSpots, a UK charity that works in partnership with a Ghana national registered NGO to connect, train and equip local leaders to drive community-led change through education.
