I co-lead KNOW Work Package 1, Knowledge Co-Production, working with Vanesa Castán Broto. I am a Senior Lecturer at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, where I research and teach disaster risk, post-disaster recovery, and climate change adaptation. Originally from Canada, I’ve been with the DPU, UCL, since 2006.

My academic interests are linked by a commitment to improve the quality of life and livelihoods of low-income groups living in urban areas. My research contributes to the area of disaster risk reduction and recovery and to the role of local governments and civil society in this (and to integrating an understanding of disaster) risk into development. This has encompassed issues of urban planning, housing quality, building code regulations, informal settlements (and upgrading), and evictions. My work engages internationally with policymakers as well as with local communities and I have worked in more than ten countries across Asia and Africa, including Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi.

In gaining a background in urban studies, architecture and environmental studies, I achieved a BA in Urban Studies, Concordia University, and M.Arch in Minimum Cost Housing, McGill University and PhD in Aménagement (Built Environment), Université de Montréal. I was post-Doctoral Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

I teach MSc module Disaster Risk Reduction in Cities (BENVGBU6), supervise MSc dissertations and currently supervise eight highly committed PhD students whose topics relate to disaster risk, reconstruction, recovery, and climate change adaptation.