Ian Trivers

Ian Trivers, PhD, is an urban planner and a senior lecturer at the Sam Fox School who teaches and conducts research in a range of topics related to the design and production of the built environment. Trivers’ field of specialty is urban redevelopment/revitalization and design, which encompasses the interlocking theories, practices, and policies that shape the central-city urban environment. His areas of expertise include urban planning and design, real estate development and finance, incentives and subsidies, housing, and transportation.

Trivers received his bachelor’s degree in political science from The George Washington University, a Master of Planning from the University of Southern California, and PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of Michigan. While at USC, he was one of the first western interns to work at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, part of China’s Ministry of Construction. He was selected as a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence, gaining specialized training in urban redevelopment and working on post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans. As a Zuckerman STEM Leadership Fellow jointly with the Sam Fox School and the Fair Transport Lab at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, he deepened his knowledge in transportation. Trivers has published in academic journals and books and presented at numerous academic conferences.

Professionally, he has worked in a variety of capacities that inform his work and research. His experience includes working on entitlements as a land use coordinator for a multibillion-dollar capital improvement program for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, an investment officer for the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust and co-founding a housing non-profit in New Orleans. Trivers’ community involvement includes being a founding member and issues chair for the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, appointed to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s Pedestrian Advisory Committee, and leading the Best Practices committee for the St. Louis Area Coalition of Community Organization’s vacancy initiative (the precursor to the Vacancy Collaborative).

At the Sam Fox School, he was coordinator of the Doctor of Sustainable Urbanism Program, has served on multiple dissertation committees and been awarded multiple grants. Classes taught include Metropolitan Development, River City Redevelopment, Research Methods, Urban Design Studio, Directed Readings in Sustainability, and To Sustainability and Beyond (jointly with Environmental Studies). In 2025-26, he will be teaching a new course in Sustainable Transportation. Trivers has also taught courses in Urban Studies at Harris-Stowe State University and guest lectured at multiple universities.