Lisa Feldstein is a Ph.D. student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, where her research focuses on land use and social inequality. She has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area's affordable housing and land use arenas for nearly two decades. Prior to commencing her doctoral studies, Lisa was the Public Health Law Program's Senior Policy Director and the Director of PHLP's Land Use and Health Program (now the Project for Healthy Places). A committed community activist, she serves on the boards of Livable City, the Chinatown Community Development Center (for which she chairs the Housing Committee), and the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (of which she is a Vice-Chair and co-chairs the Urban Planning Committee). She also serves on the advisory board of Human Impact Partners, an Oakland-based non-profit.

Lisa has provided program, policy, and financial  technical assistance to local governments and non-profits on a broad range of housing-, community development-, and land use-related issues. She also served as policy analyst to a public-sector labor union, developing a deep understanding of the complexities of local government. Ms. Feldstein also served as a San Francisco Planning Commissioner from 2002-2004, where she was a strong advocate for community-based planning and public benefits.

Author of the textbook General Plans and Zoning: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health and co-author of the textbook Economic Development and Redevelopment: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health, Lisa has also written a number of articles for a variety of publications.

Lisa graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a B.A. in American Studies – Urban Focus, and earned her J.D. from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. A longtime resident of San Francisco, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their ten-year-old daughter, eating locally, baking, and dabbling in the blood sport that is San Francisco politics.