Glennon is a Senior Community Outreach Analyst whose expertise lies at the intersection of land use and development policy and metropolitan segregation, with an emphasis on suburban spaces. Glennon works to build strategic partnerships that advance the Kirwan Institute’s community-engaged research strategy and serves in a translational capacity to underserved communities by providing workshops, webinars, and local history tours in order to bring the Institute’s research alive for non-academic communities. Glennon has been at the Kirwan Institute since 2012, serving as a graduate research assistant before becoming part of Kirwan’s research team in 2016. She was first attracted to and has remained at Kirwan because of the Institute’s commitment to transformative impact. Glennon received her BA in Geography and Political Science as well as her MA in City and Regional Planning from The Ohio State University. She is currently a PhD candidate in the university’s planning department.

1. What is one of the most interesting conversations that you have had recently?  

• I had a fascinating conversation with a community partner and architect from Franklinton Rising about affordable housing and the growing importance of pools in the face of climate change. We discussed innovative ways to finance building and maintaining pools, particularly in lower income areas.

2. What projects are you working on that encourage you to get out in the morning 

• I am in the process of relaunching our history and development tours, which is frankly a blast as I am driving all over central Ohio to create and test routes and I am learning so much in the process!

3. What questions about your work are you curious about right now? 

• I am very interested in better understanding the impacts of climate change on the built environment and the people living in cities. I am particularly interested in how cities will keep residents cool and healthy in the face of extreme heat and how planning can play a role in solutions to these problems.

4. What does community mean to you? 

• Talk about a loaded question! Community means many things to me! Community can mean a geographically confined space with some degree of shared identity, like a neighborhood, school district, or municipality. Community can also mean shared interests or passions, like my Star Trek community that can be found all over the globe or like the community we have built at the STEAM Factory. I am a member of many different communities, some defined by geographic boundaries and others transcending them. I love community and am grateful for the communities that I am a part of, especially my STEAM community!

5. What are people usually surprised to find out about you? 

• I am a HUGE nerd. I think this is surprising to people because I seem so cool 😉, but in reality, there is nothing I would rather be doing when the weather gets bad than watching Star Trek with my dogs – in timeline order, of course!