Sukanya Sharma

Department: Land Use – Economic Development
Email: ssharma@mapc.org

Biography:

Sukanya Sharma joined MAPC’s land use department in 2021. She supports land use planning efforts with a special focus on economic development strategies. Currently, she supports resilient economic recovery efforts in the region and conducts research for MetroCommon 2050, Greater Boston’s next long-term regional plan. In addition to economic development and regional planning work, Sukanya will assist the land use department to evaluate state laws, regulations, policies, and programs to encourage smart growth, sustainable development, and regional collaboration.

Sukanya’s interests include urban planning, regional economic development, workforce development, GIS/geographic data science, spatial econometrics, urban economics, and urban governance.

Prior to MAPC, Sukayna worked as an Economic Development Planner and Workforce Research Specialist at Champaign County Regional Planning Commission in Illinois. There, she worked on various economic and workforce development policy and planning efforts: writing plans, analyzing and cataloging target industries, evaluating workforce development activities in the region, and leveraging existing studies to create sustainable infrastructure for collecting and using labor market information.

She received my Master of Urban Planning degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she focused on economic development, housing, and spatial data analysis. Her master’s thesis, “Impact of short term rentals on the rental affordability in San Francisco – the case of Airbnb,” attempted to gauge the impact of Airbnb on rental affordability by using spatial econometric analysis.

She received her Bachelor of Planning degree from School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India. Here, she received distinction along with the institute’s Gold Medal for best student in the planning program.

Areas of Expertise: Urban planning, regional economic development, workforce development, GIS/geographic data science, spatial econometrics, urban economics.