E-MAIL: guochen(at)msu.edu

Pronouns: she/her/hers

2022–2023: Lilly Fellowship

Fall 2018: Sabbatical Leave

Fall 2018: Short-Term Visiting Scholar, University of Melbourne

2017–2018: Wilson Center Fellowship Leave

                                                             

ASSOCIATED  PROGRAMS

Affiliated Faculty, Asian Studies Center, International Studies & Programs

Affiliated Faculty, Environmental Science and Policy Program (ESPP)

Core Faculty, Asian Pacific American (APA) Studies Program

Associated Faculty, Gender, Justice and Environmental Change (GJEC)

Consulting Faculty, Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen)

                                                             

NEWS,  TALKS,  &  EVENTS

-2025 AAG Detroit Plenary and Panels

-2025 APA Studies Program Symposium & 20th Anniversary!

-Guo’s opening for 2025 Women of Color Community Conference at MSU (Read MSU Today link and news copy) 

-How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Geography: Theory, Praxis, and Shaping our Future (E Elgar 2024) is published! 

-Guo received 2024 Outstanding Women of Color Award

-Guo named inaugural Editor in Human Geography/Nature and Society of The Professional Geographer 2023 (Read AAG news)

-Dr. Guo Chen receives GenCen Inspiration Award-Professional Achievement Award 2023/4 (Read Department news / GenCen news) 

-New Focus (Special Issue) on Hidden Geographies published in The Professional Geographer 2023! Check out the Introduction Essay and all six articles in the issue

-Call for papers to Special Issue on Global Social Environmental Justice (link and flyer) 2023

-Enacting Inclusive Futures: APA Studies Symposium 2022/3/18

-Guo Featured in AAG Women in Geography Webinar: Thriving and Advancing in a Male Dominated Field 2022/3/15

-SWIG Event: Neurodiversity and Space (with resources) 2022/3/4

-SWIG Roundtable & Talk: Afghanistan: Security, Gender, and Development 2021/10/28-29

-Honors Research Seminar on Global Slums;  UURAF award-winning undergrad research Fall 2021–Spring 2022

-AAG virtual panel on anti-racist praxis in Geography and AAG virtual panel on migration, race, ethnicity, & justice, both organized by Guo; Guo penned inaugural AAG-Perspectives article 2021/4/29

-Guo received the CGSG Outstanding Service Award in 2020; AAG newsletter 2020

-Guo as faculty organizer of Anti-Asian Racism & Covid-19 webinar 2020

                                                             

RESEARCH  SPECIALTIES

Human Geography/Nature and Society

Urban & Economic Geography

Poverty, Inequality, & Social and Environmental Justice

Slums, Housing,  & Migrants

Urbanization & Environment

Land use, city-regions, & urban and regional governance

Waste Geographies

Urban Resilience

Mixed, Quantitative, Qualitative, & Creative Research Methods

China & Globalization

Global South, Asia-Pacific, & Emerging Countries

Geography and DEIJ

Asian/Asian American Geographies

About

Courses

Guo Chen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Geography & Global Urban Studies

Michigan State University

Ph.D., Geography, Pennsylvania State University

M.S. & B.S., Nanjing University

Guo is an Associate Professor of Geography and Global Urban Studies in the College of Social Science at MSU and holds a Ph.D. degree in Geography from Pennsylvania State University, a Master’s degree in Human Geography & Urban and Regional Planning, and a B.S. in Economic Geography & Regional Planning from Nanjing University. Guo is a recipient of a number of prestigious awards in research, teaching, leadership, and service, including a prestigious Wilson Center Fellowship (2017-2018), an AAG specialty group outstanding service award (2020), and several university-wide awards and distinctions. She is a recipient of the College of Social Science–Integrative Studies in Social Science Teaching Excellence Award (2010) and a university Lilly Fellow for faculty leadership and teaching excellence/innovation (2022–2023). Her recent awards include an MSU GenCen Inspiration Award-Professional Achievement Award in 2023 and an MSU Outstanding Women of Color Award–Trailblazer Award in 2024. A human geographer with broad interests in urban, economic, critical, and environmental areas, she is also a teacher scholar and public intellectual who has authored and co-authored 60 publications with a focus on inequality, urban poverty, housing differentiation and rights for the poor, slums, migrants, urbanization and environment,  urban, regional, and community governance, land use, social and environmental justice, waste geographies and urban resilience, including articles and issues in  PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, The Professional Geographer, Environment and Planning A, Sustainability, Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Cities, Area, Habitat International, Environmental Management, Social Science & Medicine, Acta Geographica Sinica, and many other journals.  Guo is lead editor or co-editor of two books and four special issues. She is co-editor of book Locating Right to the City in the Global South (2013) and lead editor of a genre-setting, comprehensive edited book How to Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Geography: Theory, Praxis, and Shaping our Future (2024) and also writes about Asian & Asian American Geographies. She is the initiator and editor of two Focus Issues for The Professional Geographer: “Hidden Geographies: Migration, Intersectionality, and Social Justice in a Global Contemporaneous Space” (issue 1 of 2023) featuring research articles on race, gender, ethnicity, class, nationality, citizenship, and social justice, by ten diverse scholars around the world, and “Hidden Geographies II: Cities” (forthcoming). Guo co-edited Special Issue “Interrogating unequal rights to the Chinese city” for Environment and Planning A in 2012 (based on her initiated sessions at the AAG meeting) when she was an early-career scholar. In addition, she guest edited a Special Issue titled “Global social and environmental justice: Intersections and dialogues” for Sustainability.  Guo is currently the inaugural Editor in Human Geography/Nature and Society as co-Editor-In-Chief for The Professional Geographer.

Her research (including collaborative research) has been funded by the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Mellon Foundation-funded Urban China Research Network, and a wide array of competitive awards from MSU: IRGP New Faculty Grant, CASID, Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP), DFI, Honors College, Asian Studies Dr. Delia Koo Awards, etc. She also works on creative products including book/documentary projects on hidden slums. Guo writes in both English and Chinese languages and authored likely the first geography graduate thesis documenting urban poverty in post-reform China (when she was a master’s student).

Dr. Chen served as secretary, vice-chair, and chair of the China Geography Specialty Group (CGSG) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), 2012-2015, and received an AAG-CGSG Outstanding Service Award in 2020. She also received the distinction to be nominated and selected as a candidate for election for National Councilor of the AAG in 2023. Recently, she has been involved in AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) subcommittees and its inaugural working group on Research Partnerships for Targeted Mentoring Networks. She has served on the editorial boards of The Professional Geographer and Journal of Urban Affairs and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for close to 50 academic journals and many programs. Her academic leadership also includes over 130 organized sessions, invited talks, and conference presentations.  Her public scholarship includes interviews, op-eds, and webinars. She penned the inaugural piece for the new Perspectives section of the AAG News in 2021. 

Guo has promoted a creative pedagogy with a critical engagement of visuals, documentaries, and simulations in nearly all of her over ten different undergraduate and graduate courses taught/designed in more than a decade on a wide range of topics (economic geography, urban geography, global economy, poverty and inequality, global slums and migration, global diversity and interdependence, people and environment, theories and methods in geography, the geography of Asia-Pacific, and China and globalization), including a popular exit/capstone course for MSU Asian Studies Minor students and a recent Honors Research Seminar on global slums. She has mentored many graduate and undergraduate students, numerous visiting scholars, and interns.

Her countless elected and appointed leadership roles at MSU include serving as a College-Elected Faculty Senator on the Faculty Senate/University Council at MSU, 2023–, being one of two All-University-Faculty-Elected At-Large Member on MSU’s Steering Committee in 2024 for a two-year term, serving as an Elected Faculty Representative on the MSU Asian Studies Advisory Council, 2019–2021, continuously serving on various committees for the Asian Pacific American Studies and APIDA/A community, and serving on the Urban Environment Committee of ESPP (2017–2018). She was a President-Appointed faculty member (2021-24) and Elected Chairperson  (2021–22) on the President’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues (PACDI) at MSU [including serving on its RVSM, Bylaws, and new website subcommittees; both chairs acknowledged by the President’s and IDI offices for their leadership, advocacy, significant contributions, and “exceptional efforts to ensure that our campus is accessible and inclusive of individuals with disabilities”]. She was a Graduate Students-Elected Faculty Advisor of the Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) group at MSU, a network of women graduate students and alums [initiating a highly visible SWIG Speaker event, organizing webinars, and expanding the diversity of the group in collaboration with graduate student leaders].  She was a founding member of the Diversity Committee (2020–21) and Appointed Chair of the first standing DEI committee (2021–22) in Geography at MSU [drafting and leading in creating the first ever department DEI website, making award nominations, organizing task forces and community events, and compiling resources shared with community].  She has also served on many department search, faculty and staff awards, graduate admission/funding, Economic Geography major, and other committees.

Creative Products: Slums research/student projects site coming out soon!

Books

Highlights of Publications