Brandon Finn
About
Brandon Marc Finn is an Assistant Research Scientist at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Dr. Finn received his Urban Planning PhD from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in 2022. His interdisciplinary research focuses on urbanization, informality, and mining. Dr. Finn's current work investigates the unintended consequences of decarbonization. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, he is researching the interplays between artisanal and industrial mining practices in the 'first-mile' of the global cobalt and copper supply chain. In Ghana, he is assessing how informality defines the 'last-mile' of global electronic waste supply chains. Dr. Finn's other work is concerned with urban informality in relation to climate change mitigation and just transitions, where he argues that informality lies at the heart of sustainable development.
Dr. Finn teaches Urban Sustainability (SEAS) and Society and Sustainability (PitE).
Publications
Finn, B.M., Forthcoming. Informality at the Heart of Sustainable Development. Dialogues in Human Geography.
Finn, B.M., 2023. The Structure of Informality: The Zambian Copperbelt and the Informal/Formal Dialectic. Dialogues in Human Geography, 0(0). [Epub ahead of print]
Finn, B.M., 2022. Pandemic Urbanization: How South Africa’s History of Labor and Disease Control Creates its Current Disparities. Journal of Urban Affairs. 45(3), pp.616-629.
Cobbinah, P., Finn, B.M., 2022. Planning and Climate Change in African Cities: Informal Urbanization and ‘Just’ Urban Transformations. Journal of Planning Literature. 38(3), pp.361-379.
Finn, B.M., Cobbinah, P., 2022. African Urbanization at the Confluence of Informality and Climate Change. Urban Studies (Selected as the Editors’ Featured Article). 60(3), pp.405-424.
African urbanization; environmental justice; informality; urban history; urban sustainability and climate change; urban poverty; mining; supply chains and inequality; urban governance
PhD, Urban Planning
Graduate School of Design
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
MSc, Urban Studies
Department of Urban Studies
University College London, UK
BSocSci (Hons)
Environmental and Geographical Science
University of Cape Town, South Africa