Rachelle Alterman - Visiting Scholar

Dr. Rachelle Alterman is an emeritus professor of urban planning and law at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, a senior researcher at the Neaman Institute for National Policy Research, and a visiting professor at Bar Ilan University where she heads a real-estate degree program. In 2022 she received the highest academic honor - Member of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which numbers 180 members. She is the first female from the Technion to be elected to this prestigious body of scholars.

Alterman holds a BA Honours degree in social science and a Master of City Planning from the University of Manitoba, Canada; a PhD in urban planning from the Technion, and then, a LLB from Tel Aviv University. She has been a visiting professor in several universities globally (planning/architecture or law): In the USA, these include University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, New York University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and University of Miami, University of Florida, and Georgia State.  Overseas, she was a visiting professor at Wageningen and Radboud Universities in the Netherlands, Tsukuba University in Japan, and last year in Xian University in China.   

In 2007, Alterman founded the International Academic Association on Planning, Law, and Property Rights – thus launching the interdisciplinary fields of planning and law. Her specialization is in cross-national comparative research on a variety of topics concerning land use, public and private property, housing tenure, and planning institutions and decisions.  For her leadership, she has received several international honors:  The Association of European Schools of Planning has named her an Honorary Member (the only non-European); The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm awarded her the Athena Award recognizing ten globally leading academics in urban studies. She also won the Female Athena Award granted to 20 globally leading women in the field.  In Israel, she won the prestigious national Landau Academic Award and several other national awards.

Rachelle has published more than two hundred academic papers and books and has presented at 240 international conferences in 38 countries. Her advice (often pro bono) is sought by UN Habitat, the World Bank, the OECD, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Chinese government, and many Israeli public bodies and national media. Her publications have been cited scores of times by the Israeli courts.