Carrie LeVan

Carrie LeVan is a political scientist who examines the intersection between civic engagement and place, race, and policy within the United States. In her recent book, Neighborhoods that Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation, LeVan examines how neighborhood layout, including the built environment and walkability, affects the degree of civic engagement among residents. Research for the book involved an innovative, cutting-edge methodology that she developed for defining “walkability” and engaged student researchers to assess neighborhoods virtually via Google Street View. LeVan was the recipient of the Susan Clarke Young Scholar Award for Urban Politics in 2019. She is currently expanding her research into the realm of AI and will develop machine-generated assessments of neighborhoods and will apply this data in her new book project. LeVan earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science at the University of California at Los Angeles and her B.A. in political science and English from California State University at Bakersfield.