ABOUT

Lisa Servon is the Kevin and Erica Penn Presidential Professor and Chair of City and Regional Planning at University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. She conducts research in the areas of urban poverty, community development, economic development, and issues of gender and race. Specific areas of expertise include economic insecurity, consumer financial services, and financial justice

She is the author of Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy(Blackwell 2002), Bootstrap Capital: Microenterprises and the American Poor(Brookings 1999), Gender and Planning: A Reader (With Susan Fainstein, Rutgers University Press 2005), and Otra Vida es Posible: Practicas Economicas Alternativas Durante la Crisis (With Manuel Castells, Joana Conill, Amalia Cardenas and Sviatlana Hlebik. UOC Press 2012).

She has contributed to the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and The Wall Street Journal and has appeared on PBS News Hour, Marketplace Money and Radio Times and her research is featured in the forthcoming documentary Spent: Looking for Change. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two children, and a dog named Friday.