Isserman, Andrew M. (1947-2010) | University of Illinois Archives

ANDREW M. ISSERMAN (1947-2010)

Andrew M. Isserman (1947-2010), Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), is recognized for his research in demography, employment growth, public and state planning policy, Appalachian highway studies, and for his work in early international collaboration in urban and regional planning. Andrew Isserman was born June 28, 1947 in New York, New York, but grew up in American military posts in Germany and Austria. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Amherst College in 1968, and his Masters in Economics and Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970 and 1975. Throughout his career, Isserman has been employed by seven institutions including the University of Pennsylvania (1969-1972), Pennsylvania State University (1972-1973), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1973-1981 and 1998-2010), University of Southern California (1977-1978), The University of Iowa (1981-1985), The University of California-Berkeley (1991), and West Virginia University (1985-1998).

Isserman began his career at the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 as a research fellow in economics and regional science, and started teaching economics in 1972. He was employed as a UIUC lecturer (1973-1975) and Assistant Professor (1975-1977) in Urban and Regional Planning, Visiting Associate Professor at the University of California (1978), and Associate Professor (1977-1981) of Planning and Economics in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at UIUC. From 1981-1985 he worked as associate professor and professor of Planning, Geography, and Economics at the University of Iowa. In 1985, he transferred to Western Virginia University (WVU) and served as Director of the Regional Research Institute (1985-1987), Professor of Economics and Geography (1985-1998), and Interim Assistant Provost for International Programs (May 1996-January 1997). During this time, he was also a visiting professor of City and Regional Planning from December to January (1991) at the University of California-Berkeley and did consulting work for the International City/County Management Association in Poland (1995). Isserman returned to UIUC in 1998 as a Professor of Regional Economics, Planning, and Public Policy (1998-2010), and served as the Department Head of Agricultural and Consumer Economics from 2002 to 2004.

Isserman was a trailblazer for early international collaboration in the field of urban and regional planning. He attended many international planning conferences in Asia and Eastern Europe, and collaborated with his colleagues in Russia and Hungary before the Berlin Wall came down in the late 1980s. Issermanâ??s research focused on economic regional analysis, planning theory, microeconomic theory, state and local public finance, population and employment growth, regional impacts of federal programs and spending, and rural prosperity. He received many research grants including a grant from the US Department of Commerce to be the Principle Investigator on the â??Impacts of Foreign Immigration on Unemployment, Industrial Location, and Regional Growth, 1985-1991â? Project, a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research to be the Principle Investigator of Measuring Suburban Need and Distress and the Treatment of Small Cities Under the Community Development Block Grant Program; and a grant from the National Science Foundation, 1987-92, for Quasi-Experimental Control Group Methods for Geographical Research.

Throughout his professional career, Andrew Isserman was engaged in a variety of professional organizations and received numerous awards for his research and service. He served as President of the Southern Regional Science Association (1991-1992), was Director of Research and Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (1997-1998), and President of the American Regional Science Council in 2005. He is listed as one of the 50 faculty members with the most citations in urban and regional planning, and as one of the 100 all-time intellectual leaders of regional science. In addition to this, he was named Mellon Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in 1970, received the David Boyce Award for Service from the North American Regional Science Council (1990), John Whisman Appalachian Scholar from the Appalachian Regional Commission (1995-1996), and was awarded the Geography Excellence in Media Award from the National Council for Geographic Education (1996). Isserman has served as a referee and editor for numerous journals in his field including the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, and was the founding editor of the International Regional Science Review (1976-1996).