June Manning Thomas, PhD, FAICP, is Centennial Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. She has been named the Mary Frances Berry Distinguished University Professor, effective September 1, 2016.
In 2003 she was inducted as a Fellow in the American Institute of Certified Planners. She wias President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (2013-15), and now serves as Immediate Past President (2015-16).
Her books include the co-edited Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows (Sage, 1996); Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, second edition Wayne State University Press, 2013); Planning Progress: Lessons from Shoghi Effendi (Association for Baha'i Studies, 1999); the co-edited, Margaret Dewar and June Thomas, The City after Abandonment (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), and the co-edited, June Thomas and Henco Bekkering, Mapping Detroit: Evolving Land Use Patterns and Connections (Wayne State University Press, 2015). Thomas writes about diversification of the planning profession, planning history, and social equity in neighborhoods and urban revitalization. Recent research explored the relationship between the concept of social equity and the civil rights movement, and examined the land-use reactions of community organizations to vacant land in Detroit.
She is the recipient of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning 1999 Paul Davidoff Award for her book Redevelopment and Race. She previously was a professor at Michigan State University, where she developed statewide initiatives to link urban planning services on campus with community development needs in Michigan cities. She and her husband are active members of the Bahá'í Faith, a belief system which has fueled their professional interests in promoting racial and international unity.