Adjunct, Sessional, and Status Only Faculty

Zach Anderson

Research Interests

• Political Ecology
• Cultural Politics of Resource Extraction and Development
• Neoliberalism and Market-based Conservation
• The “Green Economy”
• Indonesia (East Kalimantan)

My research investigates the rollout of ‘green economy’ projects in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Specifically, I examine the spread of carbon forestry projects and discourse in the district of Berau, against a backdrop of oil palm plantation expansion. I draw on critical political economy and political ecology to examine the role that institutions of global environmental governance, corporations, and state and civil society institutions play in the creation of new ‘green’ commodities for global consumption. I am also interested in how this process underwrites the emergence and modification of local environmental subjectivities and leads to a novel reimagining of an Indonesian forest landscape as a frontier for green investment.

Ian Andres

Research Interests

• Municipal and Planning Law

Michelle Berquist

Research Interests

• Planning practice
• Project Management
• Systems and infrastructure
• Civic engagement, community, decision-making methods

Joe Berridge

Research Interests

• Large scale urban planning and regeneration projects
• Waterfront redevelopment

Asya Bidordinova

Research Interests

• Transportation planning
• Urban Mobility
• Cycling
• Policy Analysis: policy mobilities, policy transfer

Philippa Campsie

Research Interests

• Effective communication techniques in planning
• Housing and homelessness
• Food and local agriculture
• Public consultation techniques

Jeffrey Cantos

Research Interests

• Urban planning
• Community development

Rob Dowler

Research Interests

• Governance & planning decision making boards
• Planning administration & implementation
• Housing policy
• Transit-supportive development
• Smart cities & smart regulation
• Project management & conflict resolution

Damian Dupuy

Research Interests

• Innovation systems
• Innovation policy
• Commercialization
• Knowledge transfer
• Urban and regional economic development

Zahra Ebrahim

Research Interests

• Equity-centred design
• Participatory design
• Participatory policy and planning
• Intersectional city-building
• Institutional reform
• Human-centred design

John Farrow

Research Interests

• How cities develop successful economies
• Financing urban infrastructure

Stephanie Gagliardi

Research Interests

• Agroecology
• Biodiverse cropping systems
• Plant-soil interactions
• Functional trait ecology
• Plant pathogen dynamics
• Global food systems

Renee Gomes

Research Interests

• Urban planning
• real estate development
• transit-oriented development
• long-term growth management planning

Kofi Hope

Research Interests

• Just Cities
• Social Movements
• Social Exclusion and Urban Segregation
• Racial Equity
• Municipal Politics and Policy

Lauren Jewett

Research Interests

• health geography
• health services research
• spatial statistics
• multilevel modeling
• Geography/stats education and training methods

Jennifer Keesmaat

Research Interests

• City building
• Designing safe, inclusive and vibrant public spaces
• Affordable housing
• transit planning
• heritage preservation
• strategy development
• sustainable economic development

Joanna Kocsis

Research Interests

• Knowledge co-production
• Decoloniality
• Anti-oppressive practice
• Arts based research
• Stigmatized communities
• Youth
• Leisure

Joanna Kocsis is an anti-oppressive, participatory research methods specialist and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Her research has inquired into the international development project from many angles, ranging from the learning practices of international development grantmakers to the role of psychological empowerment in the innovative behaviour of subsistence farmers in Central America. Most recently, she has been exploring the role of affect in the lived experiences of marginalized urban youth in Havana, Cuba. Generally, her work focuses on making visible and undoing systems that colonize and restrict the production of knowledge by communities that face oppression through transformative, participatory research, by offering opportunities for reflection, capacity development and social learning. Joanna worked held Research Award positions at the International Development Research Centre in 2012 (Innovation for Inclusive Development) and 2014 (Policy, Strategy and Evaluation) and has served as the Learning and Evaluation Specialist for the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership since 2014. She has co-chaired of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion working group of the Canadian Evaluation Society since 2018.

Kristian Larsen

Research Interests

• geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis
• health geography
• environment and population health
• physical activity, diet and obesity
• environmental exposure and cancer risk
• access to health care facilities
• transportation geography

Max Laskin

Research Interests

Max Laskin is an associate in the Municipal, Planning and Property Tax Group at Goodmans. His practice encompasses a wide variety of municipal and land development matters for public and private sector clients across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Max assists clients with complex land development applications and appeals, often involving heritage and environmental issues, as well as other municipal approvals.

Nick Lombardo

Research Interests

• Urban infrastructure
• Urban social history and development
• Planning and regional governance
• Property, law, and urban planning

Gwen MacGregor

Research Interests

• Cultural Geographies of Nationhood
• The City and Public Art
• Unsettling Colonialism
• The Politics of Mapping

Julie Mah

Research Interests

• Housing policy and affordable housing issues
• Social housing development
• Gentrification and displacement
• Evictions
• Planning for spatial justice and equitable development approaches

In general, my research looks at how income inequality manifests itself spatially through unequal housing patterns. I examine issues of housing affordability, evictions, gentrification and displacement, and the planning mechanisms that can be employed to address spatialized inequities, such as the use of value capture tools (e.g. inclusionary zoning).

Stanley Makuch

Research Interests

• Canadian Municipal and Planning law

James McLaughlin

Research Interests

• How human activities and natural disturbance affect soil nutrient and water cycles, water quality, and productivity
• Carbon cycling in Far North peatlands, and permafrost

Roger Phillips

Research Interests

• Geomorphology, Soil Science, and Hydrology

Léa Ravensbergen

Research Interests

• Cycling
• Critical mobilities
• Feminist urban geography
• Embodiment
• Health inequalities
• Migration
• GIS

Tim Ross

Research Interests

• Planning/design for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility
• Disability studies
• Inclusive play
• Education access
• Institutional ableism
• Transport and land use planning
• Qualitative methods

Lindsey Smith

Research Interests

• Spatial behaviour
• Food access
• Physical activity
• Built environment
• Public health

Joshua Steckley

Research Interests

• Political Ecology
• Commodification of Nature
• Earthworms
• Critical Development Studies

Greg Suttor

Research Interests

• Social and affordable housing policy
• Housing in relation to social policy
• Supportive housing and homelessness
• Housing vis-à-vis urban socio-spatial change

Stephen Swales

Research Interests

• Urban-economic geography
• Environment
• GIS

Nicole Van Lier

Research Interests

• Political ecology
• Feminist political economy
• Settler colonialism
• Nationalism and state-formation
• Land and resource conflicts

Romila Verma

Research Interests

• Environmental sustainability
• Climate change impacts on freshwater
• Finding creative solutions to global environmental challenges

Ellyse Winter

Research Interests

• Critical food studies
• Critical animal studies
• Environmental Justice

Adam Zendel

Research Interests

• Cultural Economy
• Live Music Industry
• Touring Music Industry
• Urban Economic Geography
• Cultural Industries
• Precarious Labour

Broadly, I am interested in the livelihoods, identities and working conditions of cultural workers. My doctoral research explores the everyday life of touring musicians. I am particularly interested in how touring musicians and crew take care of themselves on the road, how they maintain relationships back home, and they come to understand themselves as workers.

Peter Zimmerman

Research Interests

• Real estate development
• Housing Policy
• Affordable Housing