##  [Doctoral citations from our most recent PhD alumni](/doctoral-citations) 



 ![Man astride a bicycle](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/Binay.jpg.webp?h=79eaa07f&itok=FP0crrh1)### [Dr. Binay Adhikari, 2021](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0396329)

Dr. Adhikari examined synergy between pedestrian design features and neighbourhood walkability to explain physical activity in children, teens, and older adults. His findings can be used to design cities with better pedestrian environments by retrofitting existing urban infrastructure and harnessing neighbourhood walkability for health benefits.



![Man at False Creek, in t-shirt and baseball cap](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2024-01/Paul%20Akaabre.jpg.webp?h=1f3e7c17&itok=eE3MlBvC)### [Dr. Paul Akaabre, 2023](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0437224)

Dr. Akaabre studied traditional leasehold tenure in Ghana and found that the leasehold model is not equitable and secure, and in consequence, undermines investment in housing improvements and redevelopment. His study led to the development of a "famivest 80-20" model, aimed at securing improved tenure and financing housing redevelopment in cities.



![Woman in blue button-up shirt against stone wall](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/barr%20l.jpg.webp?h=265922e7&itok=TvHTzfXt)### [Dr. Victoria Barr, 2016](https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0319136?o=0)

Dr. Barr examined how community planners and public health professionals are working together to improve health and foster social equity within BC communities. Her work focused on the best ways to support collaboration among diverse fields. This research is useful to policymakers seeking to build healthier and more vibrant communities for all.



![Woman in green area with necklace and broach](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2025-05/meryem-belkadi.jpg.webp?h=937b443e&itok=qsgCGR_D)### [Dr. Meryem Belkadi, 2025](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0447583?o=0)

Dr. Belkadi's work examines how uncertainty during the transition phase of displacement impacts key actors, from government agencies to displaced households. It highlights financial, spatial and social challenges that shape post-displacement outcomes. The study also offers insights for improving displacement policies and practices.



![A woman with sunglasses atop her head, in a grassy walkway](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2023-03/Lauren%20Brown.jpg.webp?h=2f182f99&itok=_c9PMN-x)### [Dr. Lauren Brown, 2022](https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0421282?o=0)

Dr. Brown explored the practices and policies surrounding homeless shelters in the U.S. and the ways different levels of policy are understood, constructed, and navigated in people's day-to-day lives. This research challenges how urban governments are managing homelessness, and the resultant stigmatization and criminalization of poverty.



![Man in leather jacket, leaning on a motorcycle](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/EricDouglas_0.jpg.webp?h=51e7cfb6&itok=OE9SI64d)### [Dr. Eric Douglas, 2021](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0397248)

Dr. Douglas surveyed over 900 residents in the Greater Vancouver Regional District and conducted 15 in-depth interviews to try to find out. Read his thesis at greatneighbourhood.ca and learn how high-quality public space might improve residents' sense of community in high-density neighbourhoods.



![Woman against white backdrop](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/Feng.jpeg.webp?h=60b91a8d&itok=5Pjq-D1D)### [Dr. Lisi Feng, 2015](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0167199)

Dr. Feng studied migrant groups striving to integrate into Canadian society. She found that the different integration experiences of mainland Chinese in Vancouver is shaped by both public policies in China and Vancouver. This contributes to our understanding of integration as diverse pathways rather than a unified process with a definitive outcome.



![Woman in black shirt and necklace](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2025-05/peyvand-forouzandeh.jpg.webp?h=350ff607&itok=ZwQjod10)### [Dr. Peyvand Forouzandeh, 2025](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0448539?o=0)

Dr. Forouzandeh explored the role of real-world urban sustainability experimentations in addressing urgent challenges like affordable housing. Through diverse case studies across Canada, she identified key dynamics and dimensions shaping their success and developed frameworks to enhance their impact in connection to broader urban transformations.



![Woman outside by window-sill](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/Cher%20l.jpg.webp?h=be8e7ba2&itok=YY-6KNsH)### [Dr. Cher King-Scobie, 2020](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cher-King-Scobie)

Dr. King-Scobie studied how Canadian cities manage floods and recover from flood disasters. Her research developed new data, analysis, and tools to support municipal planning in balancing the protection of functioning rivers while protecting cities from floods.



![Woman in patterned top against black background](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2026-03/madison-lore-2024-square.jpg.webp?h=ecfff384&itok=nfdaEixz)### [Dr. Madison Lore, 2025](https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0449515)

Dr. Lore used novel machine learning methods to show the role social norm communication plays in large-scale responses to sustainable transitions in cities. Her work bridges behavioural science and planning to show how human decision-making and response to change is complex, especially in an increasingly noisy world.



![Woman in short-sleeved turtle-neck in front of docked sailbots](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2026-03/keisha-maloney-square.jpg.webp?h=f0d95172&itok=NCRZUbZu)### [Dr. Keisha Maloney, 2025](https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0450000)

Dr. Maloney examined the impact of community-engaged learning in planning education. She shows that community-engaged learning reveals to learners where the capacity for agency and action lies in transforming governance systems. She provides recommendations for educating future planners with capabilities to initiate transformative societal change.



![Woman in white blazer, outside brick building](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2024-05/Louisa-May%20Khoo%20-%20square.jpg.webp?h=350ff607&itok=ZjP0y2yk)### [Dr. Louisa May-Khoo, 2024](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0440706)

Dr. Khoo's research explores how cities can better plan for longevity through a humanistic perspective. As an ethnography, it showcases how people cope with urban change as they age. It tells of sacrifices and reveals tensions between the political and the personal, a nation's strife for excellence and the acts of endurance in seniors' everyday liv



![Man by window facing urban block](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/machler%20l.jpg.webp?h=40c38fe5&itok=pFm0YOuy)### [Dr. Leonard Machler, 2016](https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0223165?o=0)

Dr. Machler investigated whether people who lived in areas of Metro Vancouver that have a greater variety of housing types were more likely to settle in their preferred neighbourhoods. This research is important for policymakers who seek to combat the housing affordability problems of our region.



![Man outside red-painted wood structure](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/miro%20l.jpg.webp?h=dfaa38a2&itok=jp9fBvLg)### [Dr. Jacopo Miro, 2020](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0389995)

Dr. Miro explored how place helps to mitigate and reinforce socio-economic divides. He found that new patterns of urban disadvantage in the suburbs are the result of both push and pull factors, and that for a growing number of low-income newcomers, a move to the suburbs presents both challenges and opportunities.



![Woman in front of Vancouver cityscape](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/becca_bl2_web_0.jpg.webp?h=0122defa&itok=mpkWAB42)### [Dr. Rebecca Mayers, 2022](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0412180)

Dr. Mayers examined the structural and societal systems that preclude equity-seeking groups from accessing safe environments and services that promote sustainable, healthy living. The purpose of her doctoral research was to examine the process in which decisions are made to propose more equitable city bicycling networks.



![Woman on park trail](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/lyana-patrick.jpg.webp?h=7fae6795&itok=PS1bV8fa)### [Dr. Lyana Patrick, 2019](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0380745)

Dr. Patrick explored what urban Indigenous community planning looks like at the intersection of health and justice. She found that frontline workers in one organization create spaces of belonging for Indigenous peoples through relational practices that emphasize personal accountability, integrity, trust, and the importance of culture and ceremony.



![Woman in bush-laden courtyard](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/lili%20l_0.jpg.webp?h=9653f4e7&itok=ZQSqddaY)### [Dr. Lili Shulman, 2021](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0402614)

Built form, health, housing, and demographic indicators are explored in Dr. Shulman's research. While results point to gentrification, they do not indicate displacement of low-income households. Findings are particularly important to policymakers and planners in facilitating a discussion about accessibility and social inequality.



![Man in hedge-filled courtyard](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/stone_jeremy%202_0.jpg.webp?h=d85f28f9&itok=yEXzE5A3)### [Dr. Jeremy Stone, 2022](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0406145)

Dr. Stone demonstrates the nature of gentrification as a disaster for low-income communities, and how Hurricane Katrina cascaded into a subsequent disaster of gentrification for the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans. The dissertation includes a co-produced advocacy film to support voting for anti-gentrification candidates in New Orleans.



![Woman among flowering bushes](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/ugarte.jpg.webp?h=939cc4ca&itok=YHw4zSq_)### [Dr. Magdalena Ugarte, 2019](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0377642?o=0)

Dr. Ugarte examined the evolution of Indigenous policy in Chile, and how it has enabled Indigenous dispossession and ignored Indigenous legal orders. Her research suggests that the tensions between the state and Indigenous peoples today are the visible face of different legal orders clashing, making a call for planners to engage in legal pluralism.



![Dr. Wong, in front of ornate open wall fixture](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/wong%202%20l.jpg.webp?h=12581e2b&itok=6rOyeLv7)### [Dr. Siu Wai Wong, 2015](https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0165669?o=0)

Dr. Wong studied local governance reforms which were introduced in China to advance urbanization. She found that the reforms resulted in state building rather than state power decentralization. This refines our understanding of how and why China has maintained rapid urban growth despite land disputes and social tensions in different localities.



![Woman among flowering bushes](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2022-10/Lily-Yumagulova%20l.jpg.webp?h=a9e6882e&itok=AZ-o2tM3)### [Dr. Lilia Yumagulova, 2019](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0373602?o=0)

Dr. Yumagulova examined how cities and regions can build their resilience to disasters and climate change using the Metro Vancouver region as her case study. Her research shows the importance of collaboration and learning to ensure coordinated, multi-level governance of risk.



![Woman near slated wood wall](/sites/default/files/styles/card_focal_point_sm/public/card-images/2024-06/Sunya%20Zaman%20-%20square.jpg.webp?h=39472d95&itok=snDUCtcW)### [Dr. Sunya Zaman, 2024](https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0438627)

Dr. Zaman investigated how state & nonstate actors intervene in disaster resilience planning, exposing disparities between international standards & local contexts using Pakistan as case study. Criticizing top-down governance, her research advocates prioritizing basic human needs alongside resilience for community wellbeing amidst climate crises.