CD Tech Award

For immediate release:

Cal State L.A. Geography Professor
Honored During CD Tech
10th Anniversary Celebration

Los Angeles, CA -- Ali Modarres, professor of geography and urban analysis at California State University, Los Angeles, recently received a Community Partner Award from the Community Development Technologies Center (CD Tech) on the occasion of its 10th Anniversary Celebration.

The certificate reads: “Our sincere appreciation for your compassion and dedication of time, talent and expertise in helping CD Tech improve access to better educational and job opportunities, asset development, and civic engagement for disadvantaged Los Angeles residents and communities.”

A Cal State L.A. faculty member since 1990, Modarres is associate director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. He specializes in urban geography, and his primary research and publication interests are community development and planning.

He has published in the areas of transportation planning, environmental equity, social geography, immigration, and race and ethnicity as they relate to the issues of access and the role of public policy in creating disadvantaged communities. Modarres received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in landscape architecture and his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs, located on the Cal State L.A. campus, is a non-profit, non-partisan center for applied public policy research and community engagement. At its core, PBI is committed to furthering the urban policy legacies of former California Governor Pat Brown (1959-1967).

The Community Development Technologies Center (CDTech) is a nonprofit training, applied research and technical assistance organization specializing in community economic development. Its programs help strengthen the social, economic and built environments of low-income neighborhoods by focusing on community strengths and strategic partnerships. CDTech develops community assets–enhancing the ability and skills of people, businesses and community organizations in low income communities to function effectively in a competitive society.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 185,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds--reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Among programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, to be housed in the Los Angeles Regional Crime Lab now under construction. www.calstatela.edu