Members of the Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments (SPE)

Staff, students and visiting researchers and professors.

Centre Director

Name Key research interests

Professor Danielle Sinnett
Director; Professor in Sustainable Built Environments

  • Green infrastructure
  • Contaminated and brownfield land
  • Healthy places

Academic staff

Name Key research interests

Dr Michael Buser
Associate Professor in Participatory Community Practice

  • Arts-led research and creative methodologies
  • Water security and climate change
  • Supporting wellbeing through the arts

Dr Maria Casado-Diaz
(Acting) Associate Head Student Experience

  • Contemporary leisure-related mobility, including international retirement migration
  • Tourism geographies
  • Collaborative consumption in tourism

Nick Croft 
Senior Lecturer in Planning and Sustainability

  • Delivery and implementation challenges in plan making
  • The planning of medieval settlements
  • Pedagogical issues relating to assessment offences

Dr Carla De Laurentis
Lecturer in Environmental Management

  • Low carbon innovation processes
  • Energy geographies and the role of regions
  • Innovation in the circular economy

Ijeoma Emeghe
Senior Lecturer in Real Estate

  • Health, well-being and social valuation in housing
  • Planning and sustainability in the urban environment
  • Economics of housing, health and happiness

Dr Hooman Foroughmand Araabi
Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design

  • Urban design theory
  • Inclusivity in urban design
  • Decolonising urbanism

Dr Zaky Fouad
Lecturer in Architecture and Sustainability

  • Educational spaces
  • Greenspaces
  • Social sustainability

Dr Amir Gohar
Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader (MSc Planning and Urban Leadership)

  • Landscape planning
  • Ecotourism in protected areas
  • Tactical urbanism and placemaking

Dr Stephen Hall
Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning

  • Urban regeneration
  • Regional development
  • Comparative study (Europe)

Dr Owain Hanmer
Research Associate

  • Urban gardening, community gardens, and allotments
  • Commons, commoning, and grassroots governance
  • Retirement and critical lifecourse research

Hannah Hickman
Associate Professor in Planning Practice

  • Professional practice and ethics
  • Project implementation - from planning to delivery
  • Planning for housing and national infrastructure

Dr Sarah Hills
Senior Lecturer in Geography and Environmental Management

  • Food policy networks
  • Sustainable local food systems
  • Community-centred food initiatives

Dr Katy Karampour
Lecturer in Urban Planning

  • Planning for conservation and urban heritage
  • Planning for housing (including the provision of modular housing for people experiencing homelessness and delivery of net zero housing)
  • Density in urban planning and design

Dr Elahe Karimnia
Lecturer in Critical Urban Practice

  • Just Urban Design? Politics of design processes
  • Designing publicness: counterpublics and competing priorities
  • Appropriations: creative spatial practices, resisting inequalities

Dr Gloria Lanci
Lecturer in Environmental Management

  • Cartography and arts practices: counter mapping and narratives of urban spaces
  • Urban futures: sustainability challenges, smart cities and data driven urbanism
  • Urban cultural studies, including urban heritage and tourism

Cat Loveday 
Lecturer in Planning and Development

  • Professional practice and ethics 
  • Neighbourhood planning, development management and major projects
  • Climate change adaptation and mitigation

Professor David Ludlow 
Professor in European Smart Cities

 

Dr Katie McClymont 
Associate Professor in Urban Planning

  • Planning Theory
  • Community spaces and community-led activities
  • Regulation of space - values and practices
Catalina Morales Maya
Lecturer in Architecture
  • Inclusive design in the built environment
  • Bioclimatic (passive) design
  • The body in the space: Human comfort and well-being

Dr Amanda Ramsay
Research Associate

  • Community-led planning/neighbourhood planning
  • Social inclusion
  • Political trust

Dr Aditya Ray
Lecturer in Human Geography

 

Dr Heather Rumble
Senior Lecturer in Healthy Urban Environments

  • Urban nature
  • Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions
  • Healthy places

Dr Andrew Tallon 
Senior Lecturer in Urban Policy

  • Urban regeneration and policy
  • Global cities
  • Carnival and creativity

Dr Jo Zhou
Senior Lecturer in Real Estate Economics

Research students

Find out more about SPE's research students including their short profiles and abstracts.

Name and thesis title Key research interests

Shahla Aliyari

  • Green infrastructure
  • Contaminated and brownfield land
  • Healthy places

Dean Bell

The impact of engineered tree pit solutions on street tree growth and establishment.

  • Just transition
  • Racial capitalism
  • Social impact of green policies

Jo Bushell

  • Sustainable food systems in everyday life
  • Migration and diversity for inclusive cities
  • Creative research methodologies, incorporating values, practices and stories.

Mark Drane

 

Jenna Dutton

Gender inequality in the city: the role and potential of urban planning.

  • Gender equity within the profession and practice of planning
  • Planning policy and community development
  • Socially just and sustainable approaches to urban resilience

Anna Hope

Reinterpreting community: an exploration of the concepts of ‘community’ and ‘benefit’ within the context of community-led housing in England.

  • Community-led housing
  • Meanings and experiences of community
  • Public policy and political agendas

Samuel Kyei

Maximising the potential benefits of UWE Bristol’s Greenspaces to Improve student mental health.

  • Restorative and health benefits of greenspaces
  • Behaviours, engagement and use of greenspaces
  • Greenspace characteristics and design preferences in the Built Environment

Sara Melasecchi

Is Bristol embarking in a Just Transition? Case study of the One City Climate Strategy.

  • Just transition
  • Racial capitalism
  • Social impact of green policies

Judith Parry

Exploring the wellbeing benefits of Community-Led Housing, focusing on the influence of green space and green infrastructure upon the mental wellbeing of residents.

  • Mental health and wellbeing benefits of Community-Led Housing
  • Green infrastructure and mental wellbeing
  • Green infrastructure within innovative housing settings

Celia Robbins

 

George Rowland

 

Nick Smith

 

Emeritus Professors and Visiting Researchers

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