People profiles

Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Sustainability Governance and Innovation 

Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation; Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs

Sarah’s research focuses on governing responses to climate change (both adaptation and mitigation) in urban spaces.  She explores triggers of transitions toward more sustainable development pathways, and strategies for engaging a variety of actors in conversations about desirable futures. Sarah is the North American coordinator of the Earth System Governance Project, and is one of the core faculty members teaching in the Master’s of Climate Change program.

Room EV1-103 | Ext. 31932 | email sarah.burch@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Sabbatical leave during Fall term

Peter’s research interests centre on using advanced geographic information technologies to model land cover changes in response to socio-environmental forces. He has been particularly interested in the use of Agent Based Models (ABMs) to explore environmental change.

Room EV1-102 | Ext. 33404 | email pjdeadma@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: by appointment only

Christine will join the department in May 2016 following a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Her research interests are focused on the development of subglacial hydrological networks and the impact of this on ice dynamics on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. She analyses these systems using a combination of numerical modeling methods and data integration.

Room EV1-109 | Ext. 33629 | email christine.dow@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: contact professor

Susan is a medical geographer with particular interests in global environmental health.  She is an Adjunct Professor with the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (http://inweh.unu.edu/), a partner in much of the global water and sanitation research that she undertakes.  She is also a research lead for the AllerGen national centres of excellence on gene-environment interactions and allergic disease (http://www.allergen-nce.ca/).  More information can be found on her lab website:

Peter joined GEM in 2012 having been a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University. His research seeks to understand how governments, citizens, and private companies share information through geospatial technology, including open data, the Geoweb, social media, mobile devices, and the process of crowdsourcing. Recent projects have focused on understanding the value of government open data, the integration of volunteered geographic information in government, Geoweb platform development, and mobile application testing and evaluation.

For more information, visit Peter Johnson's personal website.

Room EV1-236 | Ext. 33078 | email peter.johnson@uwaterloo.ca

F2016 Office hours: Wednesday 1:00 - 3:00 pm

Richard joined the department in 2006 having spent 5 years as an associate research scientist at NASA. His research interests are in snow and ice hydrology and especially in the measurement of snow and ice from Earth observing remote sensing instruments. His research focuses on the use of active and passive remote sensing instruments to estimate global water storage in seasonal snowpacks.

Find out more about Richard Kelly's research on his website. And follow him on his blog.

Room EV1-119 | Ext. 35451 | email rejkelly@uwaterloo.ca
Office hours: Sabbatical leave January 1 - December 31, 2016

Jonathan joined the Department in 2007 and his research interests lie mainly in the areas of remote sensing and geographical information science including topographic and thematic mapping from satellite imagery, airborne and terrestrial mobile laser scanning, remote sensing of inland and coastal waters, GIS and web mapping, terrain analysis in hydrogeography and hazard mapping.

For more information, visit Jonathan Li's personal website.

Room EV1-111 | Ext. 34504 | email junli@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Monday 4:00 - 5:00 pm

Room EV1-222 | Ext. 32931 | email mckenzie@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: by appointment only

Sanjay joined the department in 2011 from Texas A&M University. In 2012 he received the Roy Wolfe Award from the Association of American Geographers for his research, which explores the links between biodiversity conservation and tourism, particularly in areas of resolving conflicts between wildlife agencies and local communities, tourism impacts on the environment (in parks and protected areas, and remote communities), community participation, and local level development through tourism.

Room EV1-124 | Ext. 31239 | email snepal@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Wednesday 10:00 - 11:30 am

Rich’s research is focused on developing a further understanding of soil – vegetation – atmosphere interactions, especially as influenced by hydrologic and climatic conditions. Specific questions of interest to him include trace gas exchange in wetland and forested systems, interactions between vegetation and hydrology and climate (weather), and modeling the impacts of climatic and land-use stresses on these linkages. Rich’s research currently focuses on high latitude systems, specifically the Western Boreal Forest, where he is actively involved with these research questions and their applicability to landscape reclamation. However, he is also a lead-PI and node leader in the Southern Ontario Water Consortium where he is examining the effects of agriculture and landuse change on water quantity and quality in Southern Ontario. Rich is also one of the core faculty members in the Master’s of Climate Change Program. Visit my research website.

Room EV1-223 | Ext. 39174 | email rpetrone@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: contact professor

Derek joined the Department in 2012 with interests that lie at the center of land use, land management, and the carbon cycle. He uses agent-based modelling as an approach to integrate GIS, ecological, and human decision-making models to evaluate socio-economic contexts and policy scenarios on changes to land use and land cover, ecological function and the provision of ecosystem services, and human well-being.

For more information, visit Derek Robinson's personal website.

Room EV1-105A | Ext. 31789 | email dtrobinson@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: by appointment

Steffanie is past president of the Canadian Association for Food Studies, and is engaged in research on sustainable food systems in China and Canada. Her work documents the emergence of the ecological agriculture sector and alternative food networks in China. She is also researching the urban food system in Nanjing, China.

For more information, visit Steffanie Scott's personal website.

Room EV1-114 | Ext. 37012 | email sdscott@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Monday 1:30 - 2:20 pm or by appointment

Maria’s research investigates the interactions between ecology, hydrology, biogeochemistry and soil properties in wetland ecosystems. In particular, her research focuses on feedbacks between wetlands and climate by investigating controls on peatland greenhouse gas exchange in natural, disturbed and restored ecosystems.

Room EV1-234 | Ext. 30164 | email mstrack@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Thursday 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Tara joined the department in 2008 and holds a joint appointment with SEED. At the core of her research program is a concern with understanding and theorizing the dynamics of contemporary economic change and the emerging and evolving geographies of the knowledge-based economy. Her research is highly interdisciplinary  in scope drawing on the social sciences, and innovation, organizational and management studies.

Room EV3-4231 | Ext. 33278 | email tvinodra@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: Monday 2:30-3:20 pm and Tuesday 1:30-2:20 pm

Nancy is a feminist economic geographer who is interested in work, social reproduction, inequalities, age and generations, and feminist theory. Theoretically, her interests lie in relationality and temporality, focusing on futurity, intergenerationality and precarity. Nancy is also concerned with research practice, including ethics, participation and innovative qualitative methods.

Room EV1-229 | Ext. 33223 | email nworth@uwaterloo.ca
F2016 Office hours: email for appointment

Geomatics, Geography & Aviation, 2+2 

Room EV1-115 | Ext. 32433 | email hdorken@uwaterloo.ca

Geography and Environmental Management

Room EV1-120 | Ext. 32403 | email m11kovac@uwaterloo.ca

Covering Sara Stewart's secondment.