Anne Taufen, Ph.D., MGA

Anne Taufen is Associate Professor in the Urban Studies program at the University of Washington Tacoma. Her research focuses on planning for sustainable urban development, with two main areas of interest. First, her theoretical work is concerned with narrative constructions of urban spatial policy, and the recursive relationship between planning discourse and pragmatic action. This includes questions of inclusion and equity – whom governance serves, and with what outcomes; as well as questions of socio-material change – how governing processes are held in place, influenced or transformed, with a focus on things, practices, and technologies. The second main area of research is a subset of environmental justice: public access to urban waterways. This work considers the planning, politics, history, and legality of how people use waterway spaces, and to what ends, an issue of increasing policy relevance as we face global climate change.

Dr. Taufen is the Graduate Program Coordinator for the MA in Community Planning, where she currently co-leads the culminating project, a two term studio practicum.

She currently co-chairs a working group on Port City Transitions with Ken Yocom (UW Seattle, Landscape Architecture) for the Sustainable Cities and Landscape hub of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, and is co-editing a volume from its inaugural 2017 gathering with planning and governance scholar Yizhao Yang (University of Oregon).

For two years (2015-2016) Dr. Taufen co-chaired the Planning Theory track of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, where with colleagues she created a pre-conference gathering and annual roundtable for new voices in planning theory (see Barry et al 2016, Unsettling Planning Theory, below).
Anne Taufen serves as a Faculty Senator for UW Tacoma, and on the Steering Committee for Urban@UW. In 2017-2018, she was a faculty co-director for Livable City Year, an annual UW-wide partnership between the university and a local jurisdiction. During the 2017-2018 partnership year with the City of Tacoma, Dr. Taufen led the matching of 12 of 27 total projects with UWT courses.

In 2018, following repeated confusions with other Anne Wessells working at UW and in the region (in nursing and in watershed management) – Dr. Taufen returned to legal use of her pre-married surname. Her bibliography, below, reflects this change.