Dr. Marccus Hendricks will join the University of Maryland’s Urban Studies and Planning Program this fall as an incoming Assistant Professor. With a research and practice agenda rooted in environmental justice, Hendricks’ interests focus on how infrastructure, environmental outcomes and neighborhood forces interact to affect people’s everyday lives and their lives during times of extreme events. He specializes in infrastructure planning and management, environmental planning and hazard and disaster mitigation. Hendricks draws upon equity planning, social vulnerability and environmental justice theory to ensure that low-income and communities of color are planned and accounted for in light of natural hazards, and investigates how the inventory, condition and distribution of public infrastructures can modify hazard exposures and resulting disaster impacts.
Hendricks is a founding fellow of the William Averette Anderson Fund (the first national organization working to expand inclusive hazard disaster planning for communities of color) and currently serves as a board member for the fund. He has worked on research projects related to both public health and disasters, which have been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Science Foundation. Hendricks has complementary professional experience from his time working with the Brazos Valley Texas Council of Governments as a Public Safety Planner and with the Texas A&M Engineering Extension at their Emergency Services Training Institute.
Hendricks holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science and a M.P.H in Public Health both from Texas A&M University. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of North Texas.