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Loretta Lees

Professor at Boston University

Loretta Lees is a university professor, urbanist, author, and scholar-activist. She is the Director of the Initiative on Cities and professor of sociology at Boston University.2

From Wikipedia’s article on Loretta Lees (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

About

Prior to moving to Boston, she was Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leicester in the UK and served as Chair of the London Housing Panel working with the Mayor of London and Trust for London. Since 2009, she has co-organised The Urban Salon, a London forum and seminar series for architecture, cities, and international urbanism, which examines urban experiences using an international and comparative frame. Lees’ scholarship focuses on gentrification, Urban Regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. She was identified as the only woman in the top 20 most referenced authors in urban geography worldwide and the top author on gentrification globally. She was awarded the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award from the Urban Affairs Association. Other accolades of Lees include her election as a fellow of Academia Europaea (MAE) in 2022, and Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in 2013. She has published 16 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters. Her research has been featured extensively in documentaries, newspapers, and in podcasts.

She received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and a BA (Hons) in Geography from Queen's University of Belfast. Lees was born in Manchester, England, to a Northern Irish mother and Mancunian father. The Lees side of her family originated in Salford; her first cousin Mike Holden held the British heavyweight boxing title in 2000. She currently resides in both Boston and London.

From Wikipedia’s article on Loretta Lees, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Companies

Early life and education

  • 1990 to 1994University of Edinburgh Doctor of Philosophy3

In 2013 she joined the University of Leicester as Professor of Human Geography and Director of Research, where she worked until 2022. She was Professor of Human Geography and Chair of the Cities Research Group at King's College London from 1997 to 2013. From 1995 to 1997, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in geography at the University of British Columbia in Canada and a visiting lecturer in geography at the University of Waikato in New Zealand in 1994.

Professor Lees became Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University in September 2022, where she is also a tenured professor of sociology.

From Wikipedia’s article on Loretta Lees (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: geographer, university teacher.6

Lees has served on numerous editorial boards, including the Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Environment and Planning A, City and Society, Urban Planning, Dialogues in Human Geography, The Canadian Geographer, ACME.

She currently sits on the editorial boards of Dialogues in Urban Research, Sustainability, Art and the Public Sphere, Geography Compass – Urban Geography.

From Wikipedia’s article on Loretta Lees (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Personal life

  • CitizenshipUnited Kingdom7

Awards

  • 2026Patron’s Medal8 9

Sources

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