faculty
Elizabeth Mueller
Director, Center for Sustainable Development
Assistant Professor
SUT 4.114 | office
+1 512 471 1151 | phone
The University of Texas at Austin
School of Architecture
1 University Station B7500
Austin, TX 78712
Education
B.S.F.S., School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 1981 M.C.P., University of California, Berkeley, 1984 Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1992areas of interest
Community development; housing; poverty; urban politics; qualitative methods
Elizabeth Mueller is currently an Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning in the School of Architecture at UT Austin. She also holds a faculty appointment in the School of Social Work. She holds masters and doctoral degrees in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She is primarily interested in questions of social equity in cities and regions. She teaches courses on city planning history and planning theory, affordable housing policy, community development, urban politics, qualitative research methods, and research design. Prior to coming to U.T., Dr. Mueller was Assistant Professor of Urban Policy at the Milano Graduate School at New School University where she was also a Senior Research Associate in the Community Development Research Center.
In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Dr. Mueller is an active researcher. Her work focuses on community development and affordable housing. She is co-author of From Neighborhood to Community: Evidence on the Social Effects of Community Development, the first study to systematically consider residents' views of the work of community development corporations. She also served as a member of the national evaluation team for the Jobs Initiative, a six-city, eight-year employment initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation that began in 1996. Current research projects include development of Housing Report Cards for Texas cities (with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation), a report on the potential impact of inclusionary zoning on the supply and location of affordable housing in Austin, and a review of evidence of the impact that lack of decent, affordable housing has on education and health outcomes. Her work has been published in Economic Development Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, The Journal of Migration and Ethnicity, Berkeley Planning Journal and Planning Forum. Past funders of her work include the Pew Charitable Trusts, Rockefeller Foundation, Lilly Endowment, the New York Community Trust, the Ford Foundation, the Aspen Institute, the Fannie Mae Foundation and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development
She is also active in state and local affordable housing policy and advocacy, producing research aimed at advancing the state of current discussions. She is a member of the Texas Housing Forum, a statewide group bringing together stakeholders from a wide range of interests and perspectives to make affordable housing a priority for Texas. She currently serves on the boards of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and of LiveableCity and is active in housing issues in Austin. She co-authored the 1999 report Through the Roof: A Report on Affordable Homes, on the barriers to affordable housing in Austin, published by the Community Action Network's Affordable Housing Task Force.
Personal homepage:
https://webspace.utexas.edu/ejm1209/homepage/EJMueller.htm