From environmental justice to housing challenges, social entrepreneurship and food security, our researchers are looking at improving our cities.
Get to know their areas of expertise.
![Women walking in a market.](/environment/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/uploads/images/research-cluster_cities-banner-800-x-450.png?itok=_qlNXuVu)
Advanceing six Sustainable Development Goals
![sdg 5](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-5-gender-equality_0.png)
![sdg 8](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-8-decent-work-econ-growth_0.png)
![INdustry SGD 9](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-9-industry-innovation-infrastructure_0.png)
![sdg 10](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-10-reduced-inequalities_0.png)
![sdg 11](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-11-sustainable-communities_0.png)
![sdg 13](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/sdg-13-climate-action.png)
Our researchers
Martine August
Department of Geography and Environmental Management (GEM)
- Planning and social justice
- Political economy of housing
- Gentrification, displacement, and neighbourhood change
- Urban redevelopment and the politics of social mix
- Inequality, poverty, urban marginality
- Community organizing, resistance, and the right to the city
- Financialization of housing and neighbourhoods
- Can also supervise graduate students in Geography and Environmental Management
Janice Barry
- Settler colonialism and contemporary planning practice
- Recognition of Indigenous rights in environmental, protected area and urban planning
- Treaty settlement lands, urban reserves and Indigenous-municipal planning relations
- Decolonization of planning practice and planning education
Marta Berbes
- Environmental justice
- Sustainable urban futures
- Resilience thinking and complexity
- Participatory action research and community-led research
- Human dimensions of environmental change
Brian Doucet
- Gentrification and neighbourhood change
- Urban inequalities
- Flagship developments and urban entrepreneurialism
- Grassroots movements and urban resistance
Daniel Cockayne
Geography and Environmental Management
- Cultural geography
- Economic geography
- Entrepreneurialism and startup economies
- Feminist geography, queer geography and sexuality
Mathieu Feagan
Department of Knowledge Integration
- Capacity-building for social transformation in the Anthropocene
- Urban resilience and sustainability transitions across North-South relations
- Emancipatory pedagogies
- Knowledge integration across different ways of knowing
Sean Geobey
School of Environment, Enterprise and Development
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Social entrepreneurship and social innovation
- Sustainable and innovative financing tools
- Alternative enterprise legal structures such as cooperatives and social enterprises
- Long-term participatory decision-making and design tools
Heather Hall
School of Environment, Enterprise and Development
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Innovation and entrepreneurship in rural and northern contexts
- Regional economic development planning, policy and practice
- Community readiness & community impacts related to natural resource development
- Planning in slow-growth and declining communities
- Can also supervise graduate students in Geography and Environmental Management
Markus Moos
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Generational change and youthification in cities
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Urban housing markets and affordability
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Suburban sustainability innovations
- Social justice and the economies of cities
![Leia Minaker](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/images/leia-minaker_0.png)
Leia Minaker
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Food environment assessment
- Population and public health
- Population health intervention research
- Food access in cities and planning for healthy food access
- Social determinants of health
James Nugent
School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability
- Urban political ecology
- Social movements
- Labour geography & unions
- Economic restructuring
- Community benefits agreements
- Participatory, community-based research
- Community-engaged learning
Zhu (Joe) Qian
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Comparative urban planning and policy
- Land use planning and urban form
- Land use reform and policy in China
- Heritage conservation and planning in China
Mark Seasons
- Planning for slow growth, no growth or decline
- Policy and program evaluation
- Local economic development
- Planning for climate change
Nancy Worth
Geography and Environmental Management
- (Un)paid work and social reproduction (housing)
- Age and generations (millennials)
- Identities and inequality
- Social/spatial theory
- Feminist economic geography and social geography
Peter Crank
Geography and Environmental Management
- Urban climate
- Urban environmental health
- Extreme heat
- Biometeorology
- Can also supervise graduate students in the Faculty of Environment
![Katherine Perrott](/environment/sites/default/files/uploads/resize/katherine-perrott-200x200_1.jpeg)
Katherine Perrott
- Political economy of the built environment
- Planning policy and development processes
- Urban and suburban design