Profiles

Pedram Fard is a PhD student in urban planning at University of Waterloo, Faculty of Environment. In his current research, Fard studies spatial and temporal patterns of land use changes induced by light rail transit development.

Adrienne Mason is a Masters Candidate in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, supervised by Stephen Murphy.  Adrienne completed her Environmental Science degree at Trent University and worked as an ecological restorationist creating and implementing

Kevin Yeung is fascinated with mobility and the way it shapes cities. He strives to improve the way people move whether it be by foot, bike, car, bus or train. Yeung completed his Master of Applied Science in civil engineering and planning at the University of Waterloo.

Nicholas Palaschuk is a PhD Candidate in the Sustainability Management program at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Nicholas works in the fields of corporate sustainability, environmental behaviour, and sustainability transitions. Nicholas holds both a BSc. in Biology (2015) and MSc.

Christopher Greyson-Gaito is a PhD student with Dr. Kevin McCann in the department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph. For his PhD, he is examining the interactions of ecological processes across scales in a variety of systems.

Shahab Valaei Sharif is a current Ph.D. student in Urban Planning at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Dr. Dawn Parker. He holds a master’s degree in Civil Engineering with a major in Construction Engineering and Management from the Sharif University of Technology (2021). He is interested in interdisciplinary research in areas such as land and housing markets, urban infrastructure systems, and healthy cities.

In his previous research projects, he has used simulation and modelling techniques to develop policy analysis tools evaluating the effectiveness of community response and mitigation policies in the face of crises, such as natural disasters and pandemics. His current research mainly focuses on the application of system thinking techniques to solve longer-term urban problems with the final goal of increasing the resilience of cities.

Thesis

Tran, Jinny
Understanding developer’s decision making in the Region of Waterloo
School of Planning, University of Waterloo undergraduate thesis, 2017.

Yu Huang is currently completing her PhD degree in urban planning at the School of Planning, University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on the complex interactions within the urban housing market system and the emergent urban patterns and market dynamics.

Xinyue Pi is a MES (environmental studies) student at the School of Planning, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo. Her work focuses on modelling the rental market using hedonic pricing methods.

Nicholas Damer is currently completing his Masters of Arts in Political Science at Carleton University and recently discovered his passion for Complexity Science as a discipline which articulates his underlying discomfort with conventional positivistic interpretations of social phenomena. He is interested in applying computational modelling and/or GIS methods to solving problems around conflict, peace building, and institutional resilience.

I will be studying the relationship between urban economic structure and trajectory and the success of a Light Rail Transit (LRT) system in major North American cities. To support this analysis, we will gather and analyze the following information for North American cities that have implemented light rail transit: