Keavy McFadden is an urban geographer with specializations in urban development and infrastructure, education, social movements, and community-based research. While completing her PhD at University of Minnesota, Keavy studied the intersection between education and urban politics in Chicago. Politically engaged research is central to her ongoing research agenda, and the theoretical insights of her research are grounded in collaborative research engagements with community-based organizations. Keavy’s commitments to politically engaged research are deeply linked to her pedagogical practice, and she strives to integrate teaching and research. Keavy’s latest research project explores the entanglements between social reproduction and environmental justice.

Keavy’s research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at University of Minnesota, and the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. She is also the co-founder and co-editor of AGITATE! Journal, an online, open-access platform that explores the possibilities and challenges of interweaving scholarship, activism, and artistry in search of justice.

curriculum vitae

Publications:

• McFadden, K. 2021. School-hosted urban development: The transformation of education facilities into residential real estate in Chicago. Urban Geography (online first).
  
• Bužinkic, E., McFadden, K., Musaifer, S., Nagar, R., Rajan, N., and S. Shakhsari. 2021. AGITATE! as creative commons: The AGITATE! Editorial Collective speaks to Nancy Sims. Against the Grain 33(5): 18-22.
• McFadden, K. 2021. Fracturing threads, again. AGITATE! 3.

Presentations:

• “Value capture in the education landscape: TIF in Chicago,” paper presented for American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, April 7, 2021.
• “School-hosted parasitic development: A new instantiation of education-based urban restructuring,” Invited lecture at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at University of Minnesota, October 16. 2020.
• “Education and financialized social reproduction: Contestations, contradictions, and infrastructure in Chicago,” paper presented for Bringing Life’s Work to Market Symposium, Auckland, NZ, December 16, 2019.
• “Education infrastructure: Urban futures, power, and political imaginaries in Chicago,” paper presented for Infrastructural Futures Across Cities of the Global North International Workshop, Manchester, UK, September 19, 2019.
• “Education as social infrastructure: Urban futures and social reproduction in Chicago,” paper presented for Royal Geographical Society with IBG Annual International Conference, London, UK, August 28, 2019.

• Graduate Fellowship, Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2015-2022.
• Graduate Research Fellowship Program, National Science Foundation, 2015-2020.
• Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Graduate School, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2020-2021.
• Ralph Brown Fellowship, Department of Geography, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2021-2022.
• Council of Graduate Students Conference Travel Grant, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2019.
• College of Liberal Arts Conference, Research, and Travel Grant, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2019.
• Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, Center for Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender & Sexuality Studies (RIDGS), University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2018.