Philip Berke
Philip R. Berke is a professor of land use and environmental planning in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the deputy director of the UNC Institute for the Environment and adjunct professor in the Curriculum of Environment and Ecology. His recent or current memberships include the Steering Committee on Disaster Resilience, Vulnerability, and Risk Reduction of the National Science Foundation, the Science and Engineering Board of Louisiana's Master Plan for Coastal Protection and Restoration, the Committee on Disaster Research and the Social Sciences of the National Research Council that produced Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions (2006), and the Scientific Advisory Council of the French Association of Disaster Prevention, as well as numerous other scientific and environmental organizations.
Berke’s research focuses on development of the methods and metrics of land use and environmental plan quality, and how plans influence urban development patterns, how development impacts natural systems, and the consequences of these impacts on human settlements. His work is currently supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Department of Homeland Security. He is the lead co-author of an internationally recognized book, Urban Land Use Planning, which focuses on integrating principles of sustainable communities into urban form. He received his PhD in Urban and Regional Science from Texas A&M University.