Associate Professor Claudia Isaac joined The University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning’s Community and Regional Planning program in 1988. She is a former director of the Latin American and Iberian Institute and is currently the coordinator of the Latin American Studies and Community and Regional Planning dual master’s program. Offering several course options for undergraduate and graduate students, she teaches courses in Planning Theory, Qualitative Research, Community Economics, Community Based Practice, Gender and Economic Development, and Latin American Development Planning. Her community engaged scholarship and practice focus on community driven practice, particularly concerning public education, local organization development and scholarly civic engagement. She conducts layperson trainings and participatory evaluations, and directs community based participatory research in the areas of affordable housing, neighborhood planning and land use, community economic development and poverty alleviation, food systems planning, and metropolitan redevelopment, and community capacity building. She works with government, nonprofit and educational organizations to help disenfranchised people to produce community driven plans, evaluations, and policies. In 2017, Isaac was awarded the second annual 2017 Community-Engaged Scholarship Lecture award by the UNM Office of the Vice President for Research, and recently spoke with KUNM’s All Things Considered on the topic of “Where Research Meets Community to Create Change.”

Education

• PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, University of California, Los Angeles (1993)
• MPA/URP in Public and International Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning, Princeton University (1981)
• BA in Psychology, Bryn Mawr College (1975)