Hilary Malson

Hilary Malson is a geography and planning scholar analyzing race, migration, planning histories, and community building in American exurbs. In her current research agenda, she draws from diaspora studies, Black feminism, and Black geographies to study Black community building practices in the context of regional migrations and displacement. Malson is currently a PhD student in Urban Planning at UCLA, a Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow, a Graduate Student Researcher at UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, and a Graduate Student Researcher at Monument Lab. Over the past decade, she has worked at the intersection of public history and community organizing. She has conducted research and developed programming for a range of institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Southern California Library, the Thomas Mann House, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. As a scholar activist committed to conducting ethical community-based work, she contributes to police accountability organizing in Washington, D.C. and the Inland Empire, youth development in Washington, D.C.and Los Angeles, and housing justice organizing with the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action. Hilary holds a BA in the Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College and a MSc in Urbanization and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She proudly hails from Washington, D.C.