Michael Hooper

Prior to joining UBC, Michael Hooper spent a decade teaching at Harvard University and worked with the United Nations in New York and Kenya. Hooper has been a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford and the Nordic Africa Institute. Hooper began university at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei and received undergraduate and master’s degrees from McGill University and MIT. He completed his PhD at Stanford, where he conducted research on forced evictions and resettlement in Tanzania. He is a registered professional planner in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

His research focuses on urban planning, politics and policy, with particular interest in four related themes: displacement, disasters, spatial transformation and participatory planning. Hooper has broad geographical interests, ranging from Metro Vancouver to much further afield. Past research projects have addressed, among other topics, forced displacement in East Africa, post-disaster reconstruction in Haiti, urban densification in Mongolia and the climate-related risks faced by unsheltered residents of US cities.