Welcome to CUPPA Careers!

The College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at UIC is the University of Illinois System's home for the study of public policy and contemporary urban challenges. We are CUPPA.

In the heart of Chicago, we offer degrees in fields of study that can change your life and change the world. CUPPA students and alumni are uniquely skilled to build and transform sustainable urban neighborhoods and communities and to address the challenges presented in the 21st century. Find our more about our Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degrees at cuppa.uic.edu.

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Have a job or internship to post? Send an email with the title, location, job description, and contact information to cuppa@uic.edu

Associates (2 positions) - SB Friedman Development Advisors

Who: SB Friedman Development Advisors is a development consulting firm with a mission to guide and enable our clients to create high-quality places through the practice of real estate economics, development finance and urban planning. We assist in the planning and implementation of complex public-private real estate development projects. We work closely with our clients to evaluate development potential and financial and business impacts; project market and financial feasibility; identify innovative public-private development solutions; and prepare implementable development strategies. The firm works nationally, with a focus on the Midwest. Clients include various cities, suburbs, metro planning organizations and other public bodies, not-for-profit institutions, and private developers.

What: SB Friedman is seeking two Associates to work with our growing community development finance team and New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) practice to support innovative, impact-driven development projects nationwide. These positions will specialize in assignments that focus on underwriting, structuring, and closing financing on high-impact community development projects in low-income communities. Located in Chicago’s Loop, we are a mission-driven advisor specializing in public-private partnerships and development projects that support community revitalization, placemaking and social equity.
Key responsibilities:

Urban Designer/Planner - Houseal Lavigne Associates

Who: Houseal Lavigne Associates is a nationally recognized and award-winning urban planning and community development consulting firm that provides a wide range of planning, design and development related services to both public and private sector clients throughout the country. The firm’s office is in Downtown Chicago, Illinois.

What: Do you love maps, graphics, illustrations, and urban design? Are you an expert working with Illustrator, Photoshop, GIS, InDesign, and SketchUp? Do you have a good understanding urban planning and development concepts? Then we are looking for you.
Houseal Lavigne Associates is building a great team of the industry’s best and brightest, and we have an amazing career opportunity available. We are seeking a candidate with strong interest and demonstrated expertise and proficiency with planning related maps, graphics, illustrations, visualizations, and reports to join our graphics team.
Duties would include, but not be limited to:

Rideshare/TDM Program Coordinator - Madison, WI (CLOSES 4/1)

Who: City of Madison, WI - Planning Department

What: The Rideshare/TDM Program Coordinator is responsible for carrying out the day-to-day management of the Rideshare Etc. Program, which promotes alternatives to driving alone. The program serves commuters in a 48-county area of central and southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The goal of the program is to reduce congestion and pollution and to help provide commuters travel options and personal transportation cost savings.
This position also supports the urban and regional transportation planning work of the Regional Transportation Planning Services Section of the City's Planning Division, which staffs the Madison Area Transportation Planning Board (MATPB) – A Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). The work involves direct contacts with potential program participants and working with regional employers and state and local agency staff involved in transportation demand management (TDM)/ridesharing promotion activities and programs. The work also involves development and implementation of marketing and public outreach activities to promote commute options.

Responsibilities include:

Data Program Manager – Cristo Rey Network

Who: The Cristo Rey Network is the largest network of high schools in the country enrolling only low-income youth. Comprised of 35 Catholic, college preparatory schools serving over 12,000 students across 21 states and DC. The Cristo Rey Network delivers a distinctive approach to inner city education to equip students with the knowledge, character and skills to transform their lives.

What: The Cristo Rey Network seeks a Data Program Manager to oversee the collection, analysis and reporting of student and school performance data. This individual will help equip school leadership teams with the information and analysis to reach their goals of academic and operational excellence. The Data Program Manager will help ensure that the schools have timely access to accurate data so they may adjust and continuously improve their instructional and business practices as needed.
Key Responsibilities include:

Community Planner - Pathways Recent Graduate Program (DC) (Closes 3/29)

Who: The Recent Graduates Program affords developmental experiences in the Federal Government intended to promote possible careers in the civil service to individuals who have recently graduated from qualifying educational institutions or programs. Learn more here.

What: The ideal candidate is a Transportation Program Specialist or Community Planner or equivalent with experience in areas related to planning, environmental, project management, and grant programs related to public transportation.
The Recent Graduate (Community Planner) will:
  • Support the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) as it provides technical assistance, training, and guidance to transit providers, metropolitan planning organizations, and State Departments of Transportation about issues related to transportation planning, metropolitan and statewide planning, and the implementation of performance based planning.     
  • Provide technical assistance and guidance to transit providers and metropolitan planning organizations and State agencies on metropolitan and statewide planning to improve their ability to meet existing statutory and regulatory requirements. 
  • Support coordination between the Federal Transit Administration and Federal Highway Administration in the administration of metropolitan and statewide planning, such as webinars, conferences, and other meetings and conference calls. 
  • Work with other FTA staff to address technical issues and prepare guidance and correspondence to transit providers, metropolitan, State, and federal agencies.  
  • Contribute to the development and updating of the FTA website, draft guidance, and support the regulations that implement legislative mandates to FTA.
This is a full time position with a salary of $56,233 to $88,450 per year

Associate Analyst/Modeler - CMAP (closes 3/25)

Who: The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is our region’s official comprehensive planning organization. The agency and its partners are implementing ON TO 2050, a new long-range comprehensive regional plan, to help the seven counties and 284 communities of northeastern Illinois address transportation, housing, economic development, open space, environmental, and other quality-of-life issues.

What: The Associate Analyst / Modeler will focus on the collection, preparation and analysis of data necessary to support CMAP’s modeling tools, including model calibration and validation activities. Tasks will also include conducting travel demand model runs to support the longrange plan, the Transportation Improvement Program, individual transportation project studies and to satisfy federal Air Quality Conformity requirements. This position will help support the guiding principles of ON TO 2050 by assisting in efforts to improve the responsiveness of the agency’s modeling tools to answer policy questions related to inclusive growth, resilience and prioritized investment through the development of new methodologies and performance metrics. This position will also support the continued development and implementation of CMAP’s activity-based and freight forecasting models.

In addition, assignments will be given that contribute to CMAP’s capacity to respond to regular requests for data and information by staff and regional planning partners. These include data preparation and analysis tasks that support capital programming, policy development and local technical assistance projects. These and other projects assigned are critical to maintaining the quality and integrity of CMAP planning datasets.
Responsibilities include:

Project Coordinator - Good Jobs First (DC)

Who: Good Jobs First is a national policy resource center for grassroots groups and public officials, promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families.

What: The project, Defending the Public Good against Corporate Tax Breaks, is a unique policy-work opportunity. While the defense of public goods and services that benefit all employers has always been integral to Good Jobs First’s core mission of economic development subsidy accountability, the ability to frame this work has been greatly strengthened by a recent change in government-accounting rules. For the first time ever, most local and state governments, including school districts, must now report each year how much revenue they lose to corporate tax breaks granted in the name of economic development.

For an enterprising activist seeking rewarding work at the intersection of just and equitable public services, economic development and government accountability, this job offers an opportunity for creative new work.

Associate Policy Analyst - The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning

Who: The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is our region’s official comprehensive planning organization. The agency and its partners are implementing ON TO 2050, a new long-range comprehensive regional plan, to help the seven counties and 284 communities of northeastern Illinois address transportation, housing, economic development, open space, environmental, and other quality-of-life issues.

What: CMAP is hiring an Associate Policy Analyst who will support its economic development and regional planning efforts. The policy analyst will advance inclusive growth, resilience, and prioritized investment in the region through policy research and writing, public speaking, and stakeholder engagement. The position will also support transportation programming and local technical assistance projects.
The position will focus on developing actionable strategies for regional economic and workforce development, as well as encouraging their implementation with partners. Tasks will include managing research, collecting and analyzing data, and effectively communicating recommendations orally and in writing. This position will also monitor and provide direction regarding federal, state, and local public policy on issues highlighted in ON TO 2050. The ideal candidate for this position will demonstrate a broad understanding of the interactions between infrastructure, land use, and public policy, with a concentration on the region’s economic, industrial, demographic, and labor force trends.

Major Gifts Officer - The Greater Chicago Food Depository

Who: The Greater Chicago Food Depository is Chicago’s food bank, providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in the community. They do this in partnership with 700 agencies and programs including pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and responses for children, older adults and veterans. This network distributes food where it is needed most throughout Cook County.

What: The Officer will oversee major gifts program by supporting the Organization's fund raising strategy to grow individual major gifts through identifying, cultivating, and soliciting high-level prospects, beyond the $10,000 level. The Major Gifts Officer is responsible for supporting the Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving with the overall strategic direction, management, and expanding of the major gifts programs.

This individual will manage a personal portfolio of approximately 125-150 major gift prospects. The Major Gifts Officer will be part of a team responsible for a collective revenue goal of 6 million out of a 20 million dollar individual giving revenue goal. This individual will also work closely with other members of the development and leadership team to support the capital campaign. The candidate will be an individual with a rich development background, who has had progressive and successful development experience in major gifts and capital campaign experience.
Responsibilities include:

Director of Public Policy - Greater Chicago Food Depository

Who: The Greater Chicago Food Depository is Chicago’s food bank, providing food for hungry people while striving to end hunger in the community. They do this in partnership with 700 agencies and programs including pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and responses for children, older adults and veterans. This network distributes food where it is needed most throughout Cook County.

What: The Director of Public Policy serves as part of the Community Impact leadership team, leading the organization's strategies to leverage policy change to end hunger. The Director serves as an expert on legislative policy related to food insecurity, public benefits, healthcare, and other anti-poverty issues significantly impacting individual and families with low incomes.

The Director identifies policy legislative and administration opportunities through written proposals that build a case for advancement. Additionally, the Director supports the development of strategic communication campaigns designed to mobilize coalition partners. Annually, directs the process to develop the policy agenda for approval by the CEO and the Board of Directors. Leads the charge to expand benefits outreach services by creating new collaborations to connect clients to additional public benefits and support. Leads a staff working on policy, advocacy, and benefits outreach. Success requires collaboration with a diverse array of internal and external stakeholders.

Key responsibilities include:

Planner - Village of Glen Ellyn

Who: Village of Glen Ellyn, IL – Planning and Development Department

What: The Village of Glen Ellyn is seeking to hire one full-time Planner. The job duties of the position include, but are not limited to, managing large-scale and long-range planning projects, providing complex support to the Plan Commission, Historic Preservation Commission, and possibly the Zoning Board of Appeals, as assigned, and implementing the Village’s plans and studies including the Comprehensive Plan and Downtown Plan. The Planner provides responsive, courteous and efficient service to Village residents and the general public. Other related duties as assigned. The position reports directly to the Planning & Development Director.
Essential functions of the position include:

Urban Planner, Sustainable and Resilient Cities – RTI (Durham, NC)

Who: RTI Headquarters, Environment and Health Sciences unit

What: The Urban Planner for Sustainable and Resilient Cities will be a key member of a team responsible for developing our emerging sustainable and resilient cities practice. EHS has many of the technical capabilities required to support sustainable/resilient cities work and requires an urban planner with a demonstrated track record working on sustainable/resilient cities-related projects and developing new business.

Responsibilities will include the entire project cycle from identification, marketing, proposals, and contract negotiation to implementation and project management. Key requirements are technical expertise and established contacts/relationships with cities, international organizations and firms working in this space that will allow RTI to successfully compete in this market by bidding on projects, but also working with governments to create projects and solicit funds. Opportunities to work across RTI units and programs for growth and exposure across sectors (i.e., energy, water, food and agriculture, waste, climate change adaptation and resilience, low emissions development) will be provided.

The Urban Planner, Sustainable and Resilient Cities will support EHS staff in a range of activities including but not limited to:

Policy Analyst - The Ounce of Prevention Fund (Chicago)

Who: The Ounce of Prevention Fund – National Policy Team

What: The Ounce of Prevention Fund’s National Policy Team is seeking a Policy Analyst who is committed to strengthening public policies that impact low-income families with young children. This individual will conduct policy research and analyses, and will help advance public policy advocacy and public education efforts to strengthen early childhood systems, policies, and investments at the state and local levels. The Policy Analyst will be based in the Chicago office, which means they’ll be in a fun work environment surrounded by fabulous colleagues and will have access to great benefits.
Responsibilities include:

Planner or Associate Planner - Urban Planning Partners (Oakland, CA)

Who: Urban Planning Partners is a small consulting firm with a diversity of clients and projects. The firm’s services include land use policy, environmental review, community engagement, contract planning, grant writing, and entitlement assistance. Learn more about the firm at www.up-partners.com.

What: Urban Planning Partners seeks a highly-motivated urban planner to join our team. The focus of this position could be either environmental or policy and entitlement management focused:

CEQA/Environmental Planning Focus: This position is more focused on CEQA work, but will also likely include some planning policy work. Some highlights of our current projects include the Downtown Oakland Specific Plan EIR and the Irvington BART Station and Station Area Plan EIR at the plan level; project level CEQA work includes several significant development projects in Downtown Oakland and West Oakland (adjacent to the BART station), the extension of BART to Livermore, mixed-use and biotech projects in Foster City, and streamlined CEQA review for several infill projects in Berkeley and Oakland. Successful candidates for this position will have:
  • A solid understanding of CEQA and the CEQA review process and a basic understanding of zoning and the city planning process. 
  • Experience working on or managing EIRs, Initial Studies, and other CEQA documents. 
Policy and Entitlement Management: This position is more focused on policy planning projects, contract planning, and entitlement project management, but will also do some CEQA work. Select project highlights include: Policy Planning - Irvington BART Station Site Plan and Station Area Plan, Specific Plan for the reuse of a naval air station; Entitlements and Project Management - several progressive TOD and micro-unit projects, remote parking facilities with autonomous vehicle connections, and Contract Planning – we are currently providing contract planning for several Bay Area communities including Berkeley and Foster City primarily on a project-by-project basis or limited duration (i.e., one or two days per week). Successful candidates for this position will ideally have:

Urban Designer/Planner - LMN Architects (Seattle)

Who: LMN is an internationally recognized design practice made up of architects, interior designers, urban designers, and planners who are passionate about design and dedicated to collaboration. We are a single office made up of 150 diverse individuals located in downtown Seattle. Our focus is on creating buildings and places that enrich communities and the public realm across a diversity of project types—including urban design, planning, education, convention centers, performing arts, commercial mixed-use, high-rise residential, and transit facilities.

What: This is not the typical urban design position, and we are not seeking the traditional urban designer. We are seeking outstanding candidates for the position of Urban Designer/Planner who are equally passionate about urban systems as they are about design details, have a strong planning and design sensibility, and thrive in a collaborative and fast-paced design process. We are a small-but-growing team in a large office looking for someone who is self-motivated and anxious to advance people-centric design in a variety of contexts and scales. Specifically, the candidate will demonstrate the ability to:

Associate Analyst/Modeler - CMAP

Who: The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is our region’s official comprehensive planning organization. The agency and its partners are implementing ON TO 2050, a new long-range comprehensive regional plan to help the seven counties and 284 communities of northeastern Illinois implement strategies that address transportation, housing, economic development, open space, the environment, and other quality-of-life issues.

What: CMAP is hiring an Associate Analyst / Modeler to support the Transportation Modeling group in maintaining, operating and improving the agency’s set of modeling analysis tools. The Associate Analyst / Modeler will focus on the collection, preparation and analysis of data necessary to support CMAP’s modeling tools, including model calibration and validation activities. Tasks will also include conducting travel demand model runs to support the longrange plan, the Transportation Improvement Program, individual transportation project studies and to satisfy federal Air Quality Conformity requirements. This position will help support the guiding principles of ON TO 2050 by assisting in efforts to improve the responsiveness of the agency’s modeling tools to answer policy questions related to inclusive growth, resilience and prioritized investment through the development of new methodologies and performance metrics. This position will also support the continued development and implementation of CMAP’s activity-based and freight forecasting models.

In addition, assignments will be given that contribute to CMAP’s capacity to respond to regular requests for data and information by staff and regional planning partners. These include data preparation and analysis tasks that support capital programming, policy development and local technical assistance projects. These and other projects assigned are critical to maintaining the quality and integrity of CMAP planning datasets.
Responsibilities include:

Associate Planner - Village of Hanover Park, IL

Who: Village of Hanover Park, IL

What: Under general direction of the Director of Community Development, coordinates development applications, site plan reviews, collects and analyzes planning data; assists in preparing planning studies and reports; assists in policy analysis and formulation; assists in updating the Village's comprehensive plan; maintains data files for an automated geographic information system; reviews development applications and prepares staff reports for zoning changes, code amendments, special use permits and variances under the direction of the Director. Assists Director with Economic Development and Historic Preservation functions. Conducts field evaluations and inspections/assessments. Provides a variety of customer service front-end support to residential and non-residential customers at the Community and Economic Development counter.

Responsibilities include:

Extension Specialist, Family & Consumer Science (Evaluation) - UofI Extension

Who: University of Illinois Extension, College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES). Champaign-Urbana Campus

What: The Extension Specialist, Family and Consumer Science (Evaluation) serves as a regular, full time, 12 month academic professional. This position is part of the Extension faculty with primary responsibility for overseeing the evaluation of education programs in the division of the Extension Family and Consumer Sciences program. The position is part of the leadership team for the $17 M community nutrition education programs funded through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) and Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) within the Family and Consumer Science division of University of Illinois Extension. This position will be responsible for developing and providing statewide evaluation strategy, leadership in impact reporting, and ensuring the division has knowledge of evaluation principles for the program.
Responsibilities include:

Director of Operations for Economic Development, Chicago Central Area Committee and Alliance for Regional Development

Who: The Alliance for Regional Development and Chicago Central Area Committee (CCAC) are Chicago-based economic development organizations that collaborate on coordinated programs and led by a management team of employees and skilled consultants.

What: This position is a dual role with the Chicago Central Area Committee (CCAC) and the Alliance for Regional Development. At CACC, the Director of Operations will support the President & CEO with guiding cross-jurisdictional collaborative activities of more than 100 high-level governmental, commercial, and institutional leaders committed to improving the Milwaukee, Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana corridor’s mega-region economy in the areas of Workforce, Transportation and Water. This effort is part of a regional planning pilot project funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration and regional sponsors, in response to the recommendations of an OECD Territorial Review of the Chicago metropolitan area.

CACC responsibilities include:

Traffic Safety Education Program Manager - Sam Schwartz (Chicago)

Who: Sam Schwartz is a cutting-edge planning and engineering firm known nationally for our ability to solve complex transportation and environmental problems with creative, multi-modal solutions. Our work includes diverse, high-profile projects around the country and we meet our clients’ needs through an interdisciplinary approach to planning and engineering.

What: We are currently seeking a full time Program Manager for our Chicago office, as an in-house consultant to the Chicago Department of Transportation. The Program Manager will manage the traffic safety outreach program in support of CDOT’s Vision Zero efforts, joining a diverse interdisciplinary team of consultants and City staff. The successful candidate will be passionate about improving safety and mobility for all Chicagoans. This role relies on building trust and creating effective partnerships to facilitate engagement and outreach; the Program Manager must be able to communicate effectively with a diverse array of stakeholders. 
The selected individual will perform various tasks, such as:

4 Open Positions - Chicago Regional Census Center

Who: The U.S. Census Bureau’s Chicago Regional Census Center is hiring a Clerk, Census Recruiter, Media Specialist, and a Regional Technician

What:
Clerk: The individual selected for this position will:
  • Perform administrative activities such as following up on requests for information, ensure the correct material is provided, and distribution of office materials and incoming mail. Maintain correspondence files. 
  • Monitor personnel/payroll processing activities, resolve and recommend corrective actions using an automated system. 
  • Communicate with internal and external customers, answer inquiries regarding office procedures, respond to multiple customer demands.  
  • Create memoranda and correspondence, review for accuracy and procedural compliance on personnel and payroll documentation based on rough drafts or verbal instructions. 
  • Use office automation software such as database or spreadsheet to enter, revise, sort or calculate, and retrieve data; graphics software to provide graphic symbols, charts and graphs.  
  • Operate various office machines such as the copy machine. 

Salary: $36,896 to $47,967 per year

Census Recruiter: The individual selected for this position will:
  • Develop, organize, manage, and implement the recruitment program, activities, and functions of the excepted service employees of the Regional Census Center. 
  • Develop a strategic plan for recruitment programs, operations, and goals for the Regional Census Center. 
  • Conduct or participate in group recruiting sessions. 
  • Analyze and monitor progress, performance and cost data of a recruitment program to ensure recruitment operations are within specific time limits and budget constraints. 
Salary: $55,905 to $105,392 per year

PhD Position in Transportation and Urban Science - UNC Charlotte

Who: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is seeking a highly motivated doctoral student to conduct research on a funded project on “Economic Impacts of Transit Investments, Social Challenges, and Strategies for Sustaining High Ridership” to be funded by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. The project is co-lead by Distinguished Professor Jean-Claude Thill at UNC Charlotte and Professor Eleni Bardaka, North Carolina State University. Project is scheduled to start August 15, 2019.

What: The student will be enrolled in one of UNC Charlotte’s doctoral programs in Geography, Infrastructure and Environmental Systems (INES), and Public Policy, under the supervision of Dr. Thill. Further information on these programs can be found at the following URLs:
Geography
UNCC
Public Policy

Qualifications: Applicants must hold a masters degree to be admitted to these programs. Applicants must have a background in transportation analysis, urban science, and data analytics. They must demonstrate excellence in written and oral communication, and working knowledge of GIS, spatial statistics, database management, and programming.