Jennifer Wolch is the William W Wurster Dean and Professor of City & Regional Planning, College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Her past work focused on urban homelessness and the delivery of affordable housing and human services for poor people. She has also studied urban sprawl and alternative approaches to city-building such as smart growth and new urbanism. An early investigator of animal-society relations in cities, she has proposed strategies for human-animal co-existence in an urbanizing world. Her most recent work analyzes connections between city form, physical activity, and public health, and develops strategies to address environmental justice issues by improving access to urban parks and recreational resources.

She obtained BA in Anthropology (1975) and an MA in Geography (1976) from California State University, Hayward, and a PhD in Urban Planning from Princeton University (1978).

She was previously the Founder and Director of the Center for Sustainable Cities at the University of Southern California.

Jennifer Wolch has authored or co-authored over 130 academic journal articles and book chapters. Her books include Malign Neglect: Homelessness in an American City (Wiley/Jossey-Bass, 1994) and The Shadow State: Government and Voluntary Sector in Transition (Foundation Center, 1990). She is also co-editor of Up Against the Sprawl: Public Policy and the Making of Southern California (Univ of Minnesota Press, 2004) and The Power of Geography: How Territory Shapes Social Life (Unwin Hyman, 1989).

She was a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study Center.

Jennifer Wolch was a member of the Holcim Awards jury for North America in 2017.