Staff
Robert S. Ogilvie, PhD
Program Director
Robert Ogilvie directs Planning for Healthy Places at Public Health Law & Policy. Over the past 15 years he has worked extensively in community development and planning to help improve low- and middle-income neighborhoods. Prior to joining PHLP, he served as a faculty member in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley, and as Director of Volunteers at the Partnership for the Homeless in New York City. He has also worked as a consultant to city and county governments, nonprofit organizations, and neighborhood activists. He is the author of Voluntarism, Community Life, and the American Ethic (Indiana University Press, 2004), an examination of what motivates people to participate in volunteer programs. Robert is a graduate of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of South Carolina, and he holds a PhD in political science from Columbia University.
Hannah Burton Laurison
Senior Associate, Economic Development
Hannah Burton Laurison is a policy analyst with Planning for Healthy Places at Public Health Law & Policy, where she specializes in community and economic development. Prior to joining PHLP, she staffed an $80 million public-private initiative that worked to develop new grocery stores in Pennsylvania’s low-income communities. Ms. Laurison has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, coordinated a hunger relief program, and organized community gardens in low-income communities. She is the author of Stimulating Supermarket Development; a contributor to The Price Is Wrong: Getting the Market Right for Working Families in Philadelphia, published by the Brookings Institution; and a co-author of What’s Cooking in Your Food System: A Guide to Community Food Assessment.
Ms. Laurison is a graduate of Brown University (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.
Heather Wooten
Associate, Planning and Policy
Heather Wooten is a Planning and Policy Associate with Planning for Healthy Places at Public Health Law & Policy, working on land use, economic development, and health. Ms. Wooten's interest in urban sustainability and healthy community development led her to pursue policy analysis and research in city planning and food systems in her academic and professional work. She has worked with the Sierra Club North Star Chapter (Minnesota) developing A Citizen's Guide to Local Land Use Planning, and with the Institute for Urban and Regional Development at the University of California, Berkeley, researching sustainable urban-rural edge development patterns and policy. Prior to joining the Planning for Healthy Places team, she co-authored the Oakland Food System Assessment: Towards a Sustainable Food Plan through the Oakland Mayor's Office of Sustainability. This assessment focused on comprehensive, systems-oriented policy change at the city level that could increase social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
Ms. Wooten attended the University of Minnesota, where she graduated with a B.A. in Urban Studies and Spanish, and earned a Masters of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.