Susan Christopherson, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, died at her home on December 14. She was 69 years old and had suffered from cancer.
Dr. Christopherson joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1987. In 2014, she was named chair of the department of city and regional planning in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. She was the first woman to be appointed a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell and the first woman to chair her department.
Professor Christopherson was the co-author of Remaking Regional Economies: Power, Labor and Firm Strategies in the Knowledge Economy (Routledge, 2009). Dr. Christopherson also served as editor-in-chief of a book series published by the Regional Studies Association. In 2015, she was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of American Geographers.
A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Christopherson earned a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and a master’s degree in geography from the University of Minnesota. She held a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.