PhD student dissertation connects suburban neighborhood decline to educational outcomes
Urban planning doctoral candidate Ilhamdaniah defends her dissertation research.
by Tyler Madell
Published May 1, 2019
Urban planning doctoral candidate Ilhamdaniah defended her dissertation research yesterday in front of an interdisciplinary faculty committee. Her work advances understanding of suburban neighborhood change and school performance in the context of declining and shrinking metropolitan areas.
With a geographic focus on suburban neighborhoods in the Buffalo Metropolitan Area (BMA), she explored neighborhood change and its impact on the disparity of neighborhood quality and educational outcomes for suburban schools between 2010-2015.
Through in depth statistical and geospatial analysis, Ilhamdaniah reveals disparities in neighborhood hardship and educational opportunity and outcome in stratified suburban neighborhoods (inner- and outer-suburban neighborhoods) of the BMA.
Ilhamdaniah's dissertation committee included urban planning professors Robert Silverman (committee chair) and Li Yin, and Corey Bunje Bower, UB assistant professor of educational leadership and policy.
A native of Indonesia, Ilhamdaniah came to UB after earning her master's degree in architecture engineering from Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia (2003), and in urban infrastructure planning from University of Twente, The Netherlands (2005). She will return home to teach at the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) in Bandung, where she will further her research at the nexus of urban planning and the education for application in cities across Indonesia.