Before joining the USF Department of Geography, Dr. Strom was Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark. Dr. Strom's past research has analyzed urban planning decisions in Berlin after Germany's reunification as well as the economic development challenges facing the industrial cities of the United States. Results of her Berlin research have been published in Building the New Berlin: The Politics of Urban Development in Germany's Capital, published by Lexington Books in 2001. Her current work examines cities that have developed cultural facilities as part of their downtown revitalization strategies. Her work has been funded by the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, and the Social Science Research Council, and been published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, German Politics and Society, and European Urban and Regional Research, and Review of Policy Research.