Mara Villaseca
- PhD Student
- Fulbright Fellow
An architect by training, Mara is a PhD Student in City and Regional Planning and a Fulbright Fellow*. Born and raised in the Philippines, she finished her degree in Bachelor of Science in Architecture at the University of Philippines in Mindanao and her Masters of ASEAN Studies at the University of the Philippines Open University. She was an instructor at the University of Philippines Mindanao and the University of Science & Technology of Southern Philippines, where she gained experience as planning practitioner in her role as Assistant Director of the Infrastructure Planning and Facilities Development Office.
*Her PhD is jointly funded and administered via the Fulbright-CHED PhD program by the Philippine-American Educational Foundation (Fulbright Philippines), the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Ohio State University as the host institution.
Expertise
Mara's research interest is mainly in Urban Metabolism (UM) as in its potency as a biological lense for understanding urban and regional territories as well as its utility to the planning profession. Under the guidance of Professor Kareem Usher as advisor, she hopes to explore this across multi-scale intersections of various subfields from policy analyses on food systems to planning theory and practice.