Dr. Linda Shi grounds her work in the leadership of community-based and grassroots movements whose embodied knowledge and lived experience provide deep and powerful ideas for change. She works to connect the ideas emerging from those movements with pragmatic, implementable policy reforms and projects, both through her own research and through shaping future generations of planners to carry this work forward.

At Cornell University, Linda serves as Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, Director of the Masters in Regional Planning Program, and Principal Investigator of research projects and multi-institutional proposals. 

Linda’s research focuses on how land governance institutions shape society's ability to adapt to climate change. This has led to research on buyout programs, impacts of property tax reliance on flood risk reduction, what it would take for the Northeast to be more prepared for climate in-migration, and the role of shared equity housing in climate adaptation. 

An urban environmental planner by training, she has worked for AECOM, the Institute for International Urban Development, and the Rocky Mountain Institute and consulted for the World Bank and American Institute of Architects on projects and research in the U.S., Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Linda received a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, a master’s in urban planning from Harvard GSD, and a bachelor’s and master’s in environmental management from Yale University.