About the Lab
The Illinois Housing Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studies how housing markets, policies, and neighborhoods shape opportunity and well-being. We use quantitative and qualitative methods and storytelling to examine housing conditions, neighborhood change, and the governance structures that influence residential stability — with particular attention to communities and populations underserved by conventional housing policy. Our work is designed to inform researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working toward more equitable housing outcomes in Illinois and throughout the world.
Director
Andrew J. Greenlee, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Andrew J. Greenlee Ph.D. is Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research lies at the intersection of housing policy, poverty, and social equity within cities and regions. His current research examines neighborhood and metropolitan opportunity structures through residential mobility processes. Greenlee’s other ongoing research examines the influence of governance on spatial outcomes for public and subsidized housing participants, and the dynamics of neighborhood change driven by urban renewal processes and public housing transformation.
Lab Members
Emma Walters, MUP
Project Manager
Emma Walters is a Project Manager in the Illinois Housing Lab and PhD candidate in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She explores housing policy and community and economic development within the context of urban shrinkage. Through the intersection of housing policy, governance, and economic and demographic changes, Emma examines the socio-economic and political complexities of urban shrinkage and its relationship to stable, affordable housing and quality of life.
Julia De Souza Campos Paiva
Project Manager
Julia De Souza Campos Paiva is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. She has a double major in Civil Engineering and Architecture-Urbanism from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has worked in consultancy projects in housing, real estate, land policy, and transportation. Before starting her doctoral studies, she worked as a planning consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank in the Division of Housing and Urban Development. Her international experience also includes one year of study in Belgium, a research project in Mozambique, a research project in Ecuador, and intensive coursework in the Netherlands and France.
Vinisha Singh Basnet
Research Affiliate
Vinisha Singh Basnet is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at UIUC, simultaneously pursuing a master’s in Entomology from the School of Integrative Biology. Her work focuses on the intersection of human-insect entanglement, design-based intervention, and social equity in planning theories and practices. She explores how complex social-ecological systems can be navigated through multiple epistemologies for building collaborative and sustainable futures. Her current research on bed bugs in low-income neighborhoods examines how bed bugs are embedded within complex social-ecological systems and how they alter the practices of different stakeholders. She is also working with the Medical Entomology Lab at UIUC to investigate the efficacy of entomopathogenic fungus on bed bugs.