Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Ph.D.

Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, is an architect (B.Arch and M.Arch from the University of Madras, India; Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), and a city planner (MCP from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Laxmi seeks to inform and transform urban design policy and its practice in order to create a just and equitable society. Her research investigates the theory and practice of participatory planning; specifically the role that digital technologies (e.g., GIS, multimedia, urban simulations) play in fostering civic engagement and participatory democracy. Laxmi also has a substantive research interest in understanding young people’s socio-spatial behavior in order to create inclusive public spaces and places.

After receiving her PhD in 1998, Laxmi lived and worked in Australia and New Zealand. From 2002-2004, she served as Research Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Urban Data Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).