People

果冻影院 Urban Laboratory's cutting-edge urban agenda is driven by a multi-disciplinary network of urban experts, students, and visiting researchers from around the world.

Professor Catalina Ortiz - Director

Prof听Catalina Ortiz began her tenure as Director of Urban Laboratory in June 2024. She听joined 果冻影院 in 2015 and is Professor of Critical Urban Pedagogy in The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU). She helped to develop the Global Urbanism MASc programme, for which she is a teaching contributor, and has been a member of Urban听Lab鈥檚 Steering Committee since 2021.听An urbanist who is passionate about spatial justice,听her research uses decolonial and critical urban theory through knowledge co-production methodologies to study the politics of space production to foster more just cities and the recognition of multiple urban knowledges. Her work revolves around critical urban pedagogies, planning for equality, and southern urbanisms. As an educator, she is committed to an ethics of care and an engaged scholarship to trigger radical spatial imagination for a negotiated co-production of space.听

Send Catalina an email

Core Team

Prof Nishat Awan, Departmental Tutor, Global Urbanism MASc

Nishat is Professor of Architecture & Visual Culture. Her research focuses on the intersection of geopolitics and space, including questions related to diasporas, migration and border regimes. She is interested in modes of spatial representation, particularly in relation to the digital and the limits of witnessing as a form ethical engagement with distant places.

Send Nishat an email

Dr听Kara Blackmore, Curator, Urban Room

An anthropologist and curator who specialises in community-driven exhibition making, Kara has an established track record in developing innovative collaborations between educational institutions, government agencies, NGOs, and cultural organisations.听

Send Kara an email听

Prof听Clare Melhuish,听Professorial Research Fellow

Clare joined 果冻影院 in 2013 to research university-led urban regeneration linked to the early planning of the 果冻影院 East campus. In addition to her research on universities as actors in urban regeneration, Clare has led several cross-disciplinary urban heritage research programmes among other activities within Urban Lab, focusing on postcolonial and decolonial urban contexts. Linked to this research area, Clare co-convenes the module Histories of Global London, 1900 to the Present, and contributes to the Cities Studio module on the Global Urbanism MASc. Clare was the Director of Urban Lab from 2018鈥�2024.

Send Clare an email
Clare Melhuish's 果冻影院听Profile

Sophie Mepham,听Centre Manager

Sophie manages the day-to-day operations of Urban Lab, its public engagement activities听and longer-term planning. She holds an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from 果冻影院 and is interested in cultural development, museum studies and critical heritage.

Send Sophie an email

Dr Njogu Morgan,听Lecturer, Global Urbanism MASc

Njogu is remotely based at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, supporting Urban Lab's partnership with Wits through collaborative delivery of Global Urbanism MASc. His research focuses on sustainable transport and mobility in African cities, exploring the intersections between place, space, society and everyday bicycling.

Send Njogu an email

Dr Joe Penny,听Associate Professor and Programme Director, Global Urbanism MASc

Joe's research interests sit between urban economic geography and urban planning, with a focus on issues of urban social justice in his adopted home city, London, especially: lived experience and governance of austerity urbanism; the restructuring of local state action through financialisaton of public land, housing, and social infrastructure; urban politics and grassroots resistance to austerity, gentrification and displacement.

Wider Team

Co-Directors

Pushpa Arabindoo Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Design	Wastelands; urbanisation, public space and political activism in India; cities and climate change.
Matthew Beaumont Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature	Night-time city; utopia in fiction writing; urban representations; thinking the city.
Camillo Boano Professor of Urban Design and Critical Theory	Housing urbanism; urban development, contested urbanism, socio-spatial dialectics, design and urban transformations, and shelter and housing reconstruction in geographies of the global south.
Ellie Cosgrave Lecturer in Urban Innovation and Co-Director of 果冻影院 Urban Innovation and Policy Laboratory	Feminist cities; urban and local governance; city leadership; engineering design; smart cities; sustainable urban environments; choreographing the city.
Andrew Harris Senior Lecturer in Geography and Urban Studies	Art, space and the city; creative cities; gentrification; urban infrastructure; vertical urbanism.
Professorial Research Fellow in Anthropology of Built Environments	Urban and regional planning; historical studies;听anthropology;听human geography;听sociology;听development studies
Jennifer Robinson Chair of Human Geography	South Africa, including studies of segregation and state power; the politics of urban development; comparative urbanism; city strategies and the circulation of urban policy.

Steering Committee

Ben Campkin Professor of Urbanism and Urban History	Histories, theories and practices of urbanism and urbanisation; transdisciplinary urbanism and experimental methods of urban research, publication and public engagement; urban night spaces, cultures and governance; London鈥檚 history and built environment; contemporary urban policy and practice in London; queer space, architecture and architectural histories; heritage associated with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer populations.
Yasminah Beebeejaun Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning	Race and territorialisation, decision-making processes, community organising, nationhood debates, colonialism
果冻影院 Citizen Science Academy Lead	Citizen science; anthropology of work; anthropology of architecture; community engagement; transient communities; social prescribing; healthcare architecture
Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Reader in Media Architecture and Urban Digital Interaction	Architecture and Interaction Design; Ubiquitous Computing and Urban Design; digital media technologies
Kalliopi Fouseki Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Heritage	Museology, cultural heritage, anthropology, reception studies, heritage management and public archaeology
Mark Frost Associate Professor of Public History	Singapore; public histories; war remembrance, European colonialism
Haidy Geismar Professor of Anthropology	Intellectual and cultural property, indigenous rights, new forms of cultural representation, the anthropology of art, critical museology and the South Pacific
Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou Lecturer in Social Theory	Political sociology, nationalism studies, radical imagination and speculative futures, financialisation, risk and debt practices, housing movements
James O'Leary Associate Professor in Architecture (On sabbatical until 08 January听2024)	Contemporary Art & Architecture; Situated Practice; Narrative Environments; Urban Memory; Contested Space; Belfast Peacewalls
Barbara Lipietz Professor of Urban Development Planning	Urban governance, participatory governance and planning through co-production; circulation and localisation of public policy; anti-poverty strategies; inclusive cities and the 'right to the city', sustainable cities, resilient cities; housing policy;听slum upgrading practices;听urban regeneration
Anna Maguire Lecturer in Public History	Public history, migration, war and empire in twentieth century Britain and the British Empire, history education, co-production and collaboration public history approaches
Gabriele Manoli Lecturer in Environmental Engineering	Ecohydrology; cities-biosphere interactions; urban green spaces; mathematical modelling
Susan Moore Senior Lecturer in Planning	Sustainable urban development processes and practices; Relational geographies of urban (and suburban) development and built form
Gabriel Moshenska Associate Professor in Archaeology	Public history, archaeologies of modern conflict, heritage studies, intellectual history, children in conflict and the impact of trauma, play, materiality and place-making in children's lives
Micha艂 Murawski Assistant Professor in Critical Area Studies	Architecture and planning of Eastern European communism; social condensers; Warsaw and Moscow; curatorial and art practice methodologies
Florian Mussgnug Reader in Italian and Comparative Literature	Catastrophe and apocalypse in comparative literature, including climate change fiction; Cold War culture and existential risk; Rome
Associate Professor, Development Planning Unit	Urban and regional planning; human geography; development studies; urban design
Kieren Reed Professor of Fine Art	Sculpture;听performance;听installation;听public art;听culture-led regeneration
Katherine Saunders-Hastings Lecturer in Latin American Studies	Violence; (in)security; illicit economies; citizenship; governance in Latin American cities
Rafael Schacter Research Fellow in Anthropology	Independent public art; street art and graffiti; visual culture; vernacular art; popular politics; public sphere; anthropology of art; material culture
Pablo Sendra Lecturer in Planning and Urban Design	Social housing; community-led regeneration; co-design and collaborative planning processes; activism and grassroots initiatives; self-organisation, citizen-led and informal urban practices; public space; urban design, inclusivity and social interaction; social infrastructure
Helena Titheridge Professor of Mobility and Sustainable Transport	Sustainable systems, transport planning

Artists in Residence and Creative Fellows

Nicola Baldwin (2019/20)
Tom Wolseley (2015/16)
Max Colson (2014/15)
Rab Harling (2013/14)
B.J. Nilsen (2012)
Carolyn Deby (2011/12)

Research Fellows

Alessio Kolioulis

International Advisory Board

(University of Melbourne)
Dr 陌pek Akp谋nar (Istanbul Technical University)
(University of British Columbia)
(Kingston University)
(Harvard University)
(脡cole d'urbanisme de Paris)
(Researcher and author)
(果冻影院)
(果冻影院)
(TU Dortmund University)
(Yale-NUS College)
(York University, Toronto)
(Sciences Po Paris)
(Torcuato Di Tella University)
(University of Bremen)
(Caleb University, Lagos)
(Terreform Centre for Advanced Urban Research)
Dr Rebecca Ross (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design)
(University of Toronto)
(Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity)
(Manchester University)
(National University of Ireland Maynooth)
Prof Bas van Heur (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Visiting Researchers

Current researchers

Past visiting researchers

Students

Current Urban Laboratory affiliated doctoral candidates:

Recently completed PhDs

Professional Services

Communications

Mark Cortes听Favis	Publications and Communications Manager Email Mark Cortes Favis
Srijana Gurung	Senior Communications Manager Email Srijana Gurung
Abi Luter	Events Officer Email Abi Luter
Yossie Olaleye	Communications Manager Email Yossie Olaleye
Gen Williams	Communications Officer Email Gen Williams

Marketing

Van Anh Dang	Marketing Officer Email Van Anh Dang
Desart Ismaili	Outreach Manager听 Email Desart Ismaili
Hannah McGuire	Senior Marketing Manager (on maternity leave) Email Hannah McGuire
Joe McGrath	Senior Marketing Manager (maternity cover) Email Joe McGrath

听

People

Professor Catalina Ortiz - Director

Core Team

Wider Team

Communications

Mark Cortes听Favis

Srijana Gurung

Abi Luter

Yossie Olaleye

Gen Williams

Marketing

Van Anh Dang

Desart Ismaili

Hannah McGuire

Joe McGrath

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