Phil Berke

Philip Berke is a professor of land use and environmental planning in the department of landscape architecture and urban planning at Texas A&M University. He is the director of the Texas A&M Institute for Sustainable Communities that conducts transformative research, community engagement, and high impact learning across the university. He has recently served on the committee on coastal risk reduction of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He currently serves as an advisor to the Urban Institute for the Rockefeller Global 100 Resilient Cities program and the Louisiana Master Plan for Coastal Protection and Restoration.  

Berke’s research focuses on land use and environmental planning, social justice in planning, and community resilience to hazards and climate change. His research spans the U.S., China, New Zealand, Thailand, the Netherlands, and the Caribbean. His work is currently supported by the National Science Foundation, the Science and Technology Directorate, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is the lead co-author of an internationally recognized book, Urban Land Use Planning, Fifth Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2006), which focuses on integrating principles of sustainable communities into urban form. Berke is also co-author of a book, Natural Hazard Mitigation: Recasting Disaster Policy and Planning, which was selected as one of the 100 essential books in planning of the 20th Century by the American Planning Association Centennial Great Books. In 2013, he received the Award for Excellence in Doctoral Student Mentoring by the University of North Carolina Graduate School.