Lydia Wileden

Assistant Research Professor

School of Public Policy

Education

Ph.D., Public Policy and Sociology, University of Michigan, 2022
M.A., Sociology, University of Michigan, 2017
B.A., Urban Studies, Human Rights, Barnard College, Columbia University 2011

Teaching & Research Interests

Urban Policy
Neighborhood Change
Quantitative Research Methods
Survey Research
Policy and Program Evaluation

Lydia Wileden

Lydia Wileden is an Assistant Research Professor in the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) within the UConn School of Public Policy. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Sociology from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and was previously a postdoctoral researcher in the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago. Her research investigates the complex and often misaligned relationship between how residents think about and how researchers and governments measure neighborhoods. As a quantitative urban scholar, she draws on urban sociology, demography, social psychology, and the study of complex systems to examine how people make sense of—and subsequent decisions about—their local environments with implications for policy and the reproduction of spatial inequality. Her current work uses large-scale survey research to develop creative measures of neighborhood context. Lydia also has a background in government, including prior positions with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, NeighborWorks America, and the White House Office of Urban Affairs. She holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Urban Studies and Human Rights from Barnard College.