Spring 2016 seminar: M.R.P. candidate, city and regional planning
Alia Fierro is a graduate student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. In 2013 she received her B.A. in Latin American studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with three minors in urban planning, Latina/o studies, and Brazilian and Portuguese studies. Fierro explores issues of equity, resource allocation, bottom-up/grassroots planning, and community empowerment through economic initiatives that promote community self-sufficiency, especially in Latin America and communities of color in the U.S. Her work at Cornell has also taken her to Chiapas, Mexico, where she worked on climate change mitigation and disaster risk management in indigenous communities alongside nonprofit organizations and the United Nations Development Programme. This work sparked her interest in how modern urban processes are affecting indigenous communities and their livelihoods throughout Latin America.