Rate My Professor Martha Matsuoka

Martha Matsuoka, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College, has been a faculty member since 2005. She currently serves as Department Co-Chair and Executive Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, a position she has held since 2015. Matsuoka earned her A.B. from Occidental College in 1983, an M.C.P. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her teaching and research emphasize community-based organizing and social movements for environmental justice, particularly in the realms of planning and policy. Additional areas of focus include environmental justice, community-based regionalism, sustainable community development, and social movements, with ongoing research into policy, planning, organizing, and advocacy concerning ports and goods movement.

Under her direction, the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute supports initiatives such as the Center for Community Food and Resilience and the Justice Summer Internship Program. Matsuoka's applied research and policy work involves partnerships with numerous non-governmental organizations, including East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Urban Habitat Program, Liberty Hill Foundation, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and the International Women's Network Against Militarism. She is a board member of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, advocating for immigrants and those impacted by incarceration. Key publications include the co-edited volume Ground Truths: Community-Engaged Research for Environmental Justice (University of California Press, 2024) with Chad Raphael; "This could be the start of something big: How social movements for regional equity are reshaping metropolitan America" (2015, with Manuel Pastor Jr. and Celeste Benner); "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ground-truth: Methods to advance environmental justice and researcher–community partnerships" (2014); "Redefining security: Okinawa women’s resistance to US militarism" (2009, with Yuko Fukumura); "Building healthy communities from the ground up: Environmental justice in California" (2003); and "Aligning community-engaged research methods with diverse community organizing approaches" (2023, with Chad Raphael).