DUSP’s Justin Kollar PhD ’25 recognized

DUSP’s Justin Kollar PhD ’25 awarded best dissertation from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning

Justin Kollar PhD ’25 has been recognized with the 2025 GPEIG/ACSP Gill-Chin Lim Best Dissertation in International Planning Award for “Silicon Frontier: Techno-statecraft and the Geopolitical Ecology of Digital Capitalism.”

Kollar is a scholar of urban studies, political ecology, and infrastructure whose work examines how high-tech industries are reshaping the built environment and transforming territorial governance. Focusing on semiconductor manufacturing and cloud infrastructure, his research draws attention to the ecological and political stakes of digital expansion—showing how climate risk, resource conflict, and spatial inequality are embedded in the geography of contemporary technological development. 

The award selection committee shared the following about Kollar’s selection:

“Dr. Kollar’s dissertation stands out as a landmark contribution to the field of international planning due to its original theoretical interventions, multi-scalar empirical depth, and urgent relevance to current geopolitical and environmental realities. By advancing the concept of techno-statecraft, Kollar breaks new ground in understanding how state power is exercised through infrastructure, industrial policy, and territorial transformation in the digital age. His work meticulously traces the evolution of the semiconductor industry—from its rise during the mid-20th century in the United States to its geographic dispersal across East and Southeast Asia—highlighting how supply chains are not simply economic phenomena but spatial and political projects.

Kollar will receive a grant of $1000 and present his winning work at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning’s annual conference in late October.

In recognition of the late Gill-Chin Lim's commitment to studying the humanistic aspects of globalization, GPEIG established this award in his name. It is funded annually by the Consortium of Development Studies founded by Lim in 1982. This award recognizes superior scholarship in a doctoral dissertation completed by a student enrolled in an ACSP-member school.

-- By Maria Iacobo