about

bio

Leslie Kern, PhD, is the author of three books about cities, including Gentrification Is Inevitable And Other Lies and Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. Her latest book, with Roberta Hawkins, is Higher Expectations: How to Survive Academia, Make it Better for Others, and Transform the University. Leslie was an associate professor of geography and environment and feminist and gender studies at Mount Allison University from 2009-2024, before leaving to focus on writing, speaking, consulting, and coaching. Her research has earned a Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award, a National Housing Studies Achievement Award, and several national multi-year grants. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages. Leslie’s writing has appeared in Nature, The Guardian, Vox, Bloomberg CityLab, LitHub, and Refinery29, and in her Substack newsletter, Writing, In Practice. She is also a career and writing coach for academics and authors. She lives in Cambridge, Ontario with her partner and two cats.