Our featured Fellow for April 2023 is Chandler Ian Wilkins. Chandler is a doctoral candidate studying Urban and Regional Science at Texas A&M University. He joined the Bill Anderson Fund as a Fellow in 2019. He has served in several roles on the BAF Student Council, including as Co-Chair for the Collaborative Communities Initiative for two years and as a member of the Fellowship Intake and Lightning Talks Committees. 

Chandler’s research interests include subsidized housing, disasters, community development, housing recovery, and urban planning. His dissertation focuses on the unmet needs of Houston public housing residents during Hurricane Harvey, COVID-19, and Winter Storm Uri. The goals of his research are to: (1) identify how public housing residents perceive their agency during current disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery planning processes; (2) identify needs that went unmet for public housing residents during recent disasters; and (3) identify how public housing authorities and local, state, and federal agencies can better support public housing residents during disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

Alongside a team of researchers and practitioners, Chandler helped develop the State of Texas’s first Housing Recovery Plan Evaluation Tool (Tool) and Guidebook. The Tool provides an assessment of whether and to what extent a housing recovery plan addresses important topics related to effective, efficient, and inclusive housing recovery after a natural, technological, or human-caused disaster. The overarching goal of this Tool is to improve housing recovery planning throughout the State of Texas and beyond. 

Chandler is a recipient of the Dr. Dionel Avilés ’53 and Dr. James Johnson ’67 Graduate Fellowship at Texas A&M and the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center’s Planning for Disaster Mitigation Award. Outside of his research, Chandler is heavily involved in councils, committees, and organizations across Texas A&M’s campus. Notably, he has served as a School of Architecture Senator, Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chair, and two-time Vice President of University Affairs for the Graduate and Professional Student Government, member of Texas A&M’s President’s Council for Climate and Diversity, and graduate panel member for Texas A&M’s Honor Council. 

Chandler holds a Master of Urban Planning degree and a graduate certificate in Sustainable Urbanism from Texas A&M University and a Bachelor of Science in Community and Regional Planning from Iowa State University. 

Chandler is currently on the job market! You can find his publications here and connect with him on LinkedIn here. 

RESEARCH INTERESTS: subsidized housing, hazards and disasters, community development, housing recovery, urban planning.