Professor Yasminah Beebeejaun wins prestigious award for advancing research on race & ethnicity

Professor Yasminah Beebeejaun, Professor of Urban Politics and Planning at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning, has been honoured with the Scott Cummings Distinguished Editorial Service Award from the Urban Affairs Association (UAA). The award recognises her visionary leadership as inaugural co-editor, alongside Dr Ali Modarres, of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City.

Together, Professor Beebeejaun and Dr Modarres were commended for building a journal that “reflects the complexity of cities and the communities that shape them,” centring race and ethnicity in urban research and practice. Their editorial approach, defined by care, generosity and intellectual curiosity, has created space for scholars, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue justice-oriented urban studies with rigour and creativity.

A leading voice in feminist and anti-racist planning, Professor Beebeejaun’s research interrogates the colonial assumptions underlying British planning history. She is currently completing a monograph on race, planning and post-war Britain with the University of California Press. Before joining UCL, she lectured at the Universities of Manchester and the West of England, Bristol, and has held visiting scholarships at the Universities of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign and Chicago) and Michigan.

The Urban Affairs Association connects more than a thousand urban scholars, researchers and practitioners worldwide, promoting interdisciplinary research to foster more just and equitable cities.