A research lab at ICTA-UAB
What is BCNUEJ?
The Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability is part of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). BCNUEJ is officially recognized as a Consolidated Research Group (SGR) by the Catalan Research Agency AGAUR.
Our lab examines the structural and systemic drivers of social inequalities, exclusion, oppression, and neo-colonization in cities. Building on the theory and methods from urban planning, public policy, urban and environmental sociology, urban geography and public health, we analyze the extent to which urban plans and policy decisions contribute to more just, resilient, healthy, and sustainable cities, and how community groups in distressed neighborhoods contest environmental inequities as a result of urban (re)development processes and policies.
We believe in putting the needs of socially vulnerable groups at the center of sustainable urban land use practices and planning decisions, and prioritizing justice-driven responses to environmental and climate-related challenges. Our emphasis is on understanding the role that community, public, and private institutions can play in creating prosperous, welcoming and supportive cities for all.
Our Values
We consider BCNUEJ to be a feminist lab in which interpersonal relations and values of support, care, learning, and personal development are at the center of our scientific identity. In an increasingly competitive academic environment driven by numbers and productivity, we aim to build a different practice, one that questions unhealthy and oppressive habits, stigmas and preconceived opinions that tend to erode wellbeing, health, and happiness.
We are an intersectional lab in which the life experiences, trajectories, values and multiple identities of our lab members enrich our practice. We also aim to recognize “the other” in the academic world, those whose contributions are less visible or overlooked, but essential to creating a balanced, more emancipatory, and equitable academic practice.
Visit our Resources page to find a list of relevant articles, websites, toolkits and publications that we hope prove useful to our colleagues in promoting a more feminist academic practice, and see our guide to Building an Ethics of Care in Academia below.
Building an Ethics of Care in Academia
Our Guide to Building a Healthier Work-Life Balance
Our lab is committed to ensuring that its members are able to flourish both in their personal and professional lives. This is particularly important in the scientific community, which is highly demanding and has few formal structures or firm boundaries. In the face of such challenges, we have collectively designed a set of policies, practices, and guidelines designed to help every lab member—and other colleagues and fellow researchers—keep their work and life in balance and build a greater ethics of care. In doing so, we are building on the principles of the Jay Vanbavel lab at NYU, to whom we are grateful for their inspiration and support. You can download the full vignette here.
Meet the team
BCNUEJ hosts a team of research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and Master’s students conducting research on green urban planning, environmental equity, and health.
Core Members
Isabelle Anguelovski
ICREA Research Professor and BCNUEJ Coordinator
Isabelle is the director of BCNUEJ, an ICREA Research Professor, and a PI and Head of the Gender, Diversity, and Wellbeing Committee at ICTA-UAB. She obtained a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT before returning to Europe in 2011 with a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship. Her research examines the extent to which urban plans and policy decisions contribute to more just, resilient, healthy, and sustainable cities, and how community groups in distressed neighborhoods contest the existence, creation, or exacerbation of environmental inequities as a result of urban (re)development processes and policies. Between 2016 and 2022, she was the PI of GreenLULUs, an ERC-funded project which examined green inequalities in 40 cities in Europe, the US, and Canada and she now coordinates a new POC ERC, ClimateJusticeRead,y on predicting and preventing green gentrification. She coordinates the BCNUEJ Catalan-funded SGR research group and co-leads the research lines "Environmental and Climate Gentrification" and "Urban Climate Risk, Infrastructures, and Justice" at BCNUEJ. (Languages: Cat, Eng, Spa, French)
Elia Apostolopoulou
Senior Researcher and Ramón y Cajal Fellow
Elia is a human geographer and a political ecologist and she is a Senior Ramon y Cajal Fellow based at ICTA-UAB. Her research explores how mega-infrastructure projects, investments in the built environment and neoliberal urbanism transform urban places, socionatures and livelihoods, and influence the patterns of social, spatial and environmental inequality. She has been based for almost a decade in the UK where she held postdoctoral and lectureship positions in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. In 2015 she was a visiting academic in the Center for Place, Culture and Politics in City University of New York and in 2017, a Carson Fellow in Ludwig-Maximillians-Universitat in Munich. She has won a significant number of internationally competitive fellowships and grants, including an individual Marie Skłodowska-Curie and a Carson Fellowship and grants from British Academy, Cambridge Arts Humanities & Social Sciences, and Royal Geographical Society. Elia is also a Senior Associate at the University of Cambridge and an editor of Dialogues in Human Geography. At BCNUEJ she leads the research line Planetary Urban Infrastructures. (Languages: Eng, Spa, Greek)
Amalia Calderón Argelich
Postdoctoral Researcher
Amalia is a postdoctoral researcher at ICTA-UAB. She holds a PhD on Environmental Science and Sustainability from ICTA-UAB. Her research focuses on the planning and implementation of the urban green and blue infrastructure within sustainability agendas and its implications in terms of environmental justice and climate gentrification. Her research interests also cover the use and perceptions of public (green) space with an intersectional gender perspective and feminist research methods. (Languages: Cat, Eng, Spa)
Andréanne Breton-Carbonneau
Doctoral Researcher
Andréanne holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from McGill University and an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research explores the health equity impacts of planning and implementing green resilient infrastructure. For her dissertation, Andréanne will investigate the extent to which urban policy and green resilient infrastructure create new waves of exclusion, displacement and health inequalities, or in contrast, contribute to greater health justice. (Languages: Eng, French)
Helen Cole
Senior Researcher and Deputy Coordinator
Helen is Senior Researcher (Banco Santander-UAB Talent Fellow) at ICTA-UAB and is deputy coordinator and co-leader of the research lines "Financialization, Housing Justice, and Climate Change" and "Urban Environment, Health and Equity" at BCNUEJ. She holds a Doctorate in Public Health from the City University of New York Graduate Center, an MPH in Health Behavior and Health Education and Certificate in Global Health from the University of North Carolina. Bridging the fields of public health, urban planning and environmental justice, her work explores whether, and how, healthier cities may also be made equitable, placing urban health interventions in the context of the broader urban social and political environments. (Languages: Eng, Spa)
Marta Conde
Postdoctoral Researcher
Marta is Marie Curie Fellow at ICTA-UAB and at CSRM, University of Queensland, Australia. Her research looks at social reactions to the expansion of extractive industries. During her fellowship (GROUT), she uses political ecology, resource governance, environmental justice and theories of planetary urbanisation to analyze the conflicts and governance arrangements in the expansion of mining frontiers to the periphery of towns and cities. Her research also explores the interaction of science, activism and knowledge co-production and governance issues around seabed mining and hybrid urban governance, linking these to the concept of degrowth as a form of contestation. She co-leads the research line "Environmental Conflicts, Transitions, and Degrowth" at BCNUEJ.
Ilenia Iengo
Doctoral Researcher
Ilenia is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie PhD fellow of WEGO-ITN in Feminist Political Ecology, at BCNUEJ. She is a chronically ill scholar-activist from Naples in southern Italy, member of the Ecologie Politiche del Presente laboratory and Undisciplined Environments collective. She worked as co-coordinator of the Public Environmental Humanities Project Toxic Bios: a guerrilla narrative mapping contamination, illness and resistance for emancipatory storytelling at EHL KTH in Stockholm. Her work lies at the crossroad of environmental humanities, feminist political ecology, and disability justice engaging with toxicity, embodiment, and prefigurative urban politics that affirm environmental justice and transfeminist praxes. Some of her work is published on Environmental Humanities, Journal of Political Ecology, Environmental Justice, Uneven Earth and Euronomade. (Languages: Italian, English, Spanish, French)
Panagiota Kotsila
Senior Researcher and Ramón y Cajal Fellow
Panagiota is a 'Juan de la Cierva-incorporacio' postdoctoral fellow, and was the co-PI at ICTA-UAB of the H2020 WEGO-ITN (www.wegoitn.org). She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Bonn. Her research spans from the politics of water and sanitation development, the bio/necro-politics of public health, the neoliberalisation of urban nature, and questions of urban climate and health justice, particulalry in relation to immigration and racialized groups. As a political ecologist she is interested in how the notions of 'nature' and 'risk' are socially constructed and socially driven. Panagiota is the co-cordinator of the "Feminist and Urban Political Ecology" research line at BCNUEJ.(Languages: Eng, Cat, Spa, Greek).
Austin Matheney
Doctoral Researcher
Austin obtained a BA in Global and International Studies from Western Michigan University, with time spent at the University of Cape Town, before obtaining a joint-degree MA in Global Studies from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and FLACSO Argentina with an additional semester spent at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Influenced by each institution, his research explores the impacts of urban greening projects on the (re)construction of identities, place, and community. Through his dissertation, Austin explores methodological approaches to community-based environmental justice research, aiming to foster more just research approaches through which green and just cities can be imagined and performed (Languages: Eng, Spa, French)
Emilia Oscilowicz
Doctoral Researcher
Emilia is pursuing a PhD in Urban & Community Planning at the University of Colorado - Denver. She is an associated researcher with BCNUEJ as well as the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She is an environmental and social equity urban planner working in community-based research of policy tools and interventions that contribute to just, green, and affordable neighbourhoods. Emilia holds a Masters of Community and Regional Planning (MCRP) and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental and Sustainable Geography from the University of British Columbia (Languages: Eng, Spa)
Margarita Triguero-Mas
Senior Researcher and Ramón y Cajal Fellow
Margarita is associated researcher at BCNUEJ and a senior researcher at UOC, where she co-leads the Planetary Health research group, and associated researcher (Assistant Professor level) at ISGlobal. She is an environmental scientist working at the intersection of public health, urban planning and environmental justice and a world expert on the health impacts of urban nature, with a particular focus on health equity (PhD biomedicine, UPF). Her work has informed the US and the European Environmental Protection Agencies and the World Health Organization. In the last three years she has been consistently among the most cited and influential scientists in the world. Margarita is the Co-coordinator of the “Environmental and climate gentrification” and “Urban environment, health and equity” research lines at BCNUEJ. (Languages: Cat, Spa, Eng)
Kayin Venner
Doctoral Researcher
Kayin is a La Caixa INPhINIT fellow at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) and ICTA-UAB. He holds a European Master's degree in Human Rights and Democratization from the Global Campus of Human Rights (GC), a MSc in Public Policy and Governance from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and a BSc in International Development Studies from Wageningen University (WUR). His PhD research focuses on the urban equity implications of climate adaptation finance. Prior to starting his PhD, he worked as a research trainee at BC3 and as an intern at UNESCO HQ in Paris.
Isabela Jayne Vera
Doctoral Researcher
Isabela holds a Master of International Affairs from the Hertie School of Governance, a Graduate Diploma in Food Systems Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University, and a BA (Hons) in Sociology and Professional Writing from the University of Victoria, where her thesis won the Alan Hedley award for the strongest Sociology honours thesis of the year. As the recipient of a 2022 Doctoral Fellowship award from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, her doctoral research explores the impact of urban food policies on socio-economic and food justice for migrant communities in Vancouver and Barcelona. She is committed to feminist and decolonial research approaches and is dedicated to supporting the transition toward sustainable food systems that are just for all. Isabela is the founder of Feminist Food Journal, an online magazine dedicated to feminist perspectives on food and culture, and an editor of Urban/Peri-Urban Agriculture and Forced Displacement, a forthcoming volume of the Springer Urban Agriculture Book Series which looks at urban agriculture as a livelihood intervention for forcibly displaced persons around the world. (Languages: Eng, French, Spa)
Ella O'Neill
Doctoral Researcher
Ella holds a BSc in Anthropology from University College London (UCL) and an MSc in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, specialising in Ecological Economics. Her doctoral research focuses on the UK and the Netherlands, looking at the impacts of urban greening initiatives on health,particularly mental health. Her research encompasses case studies that examine how gentrification caused by redevelopment projects contributes to poor mental health outcomes. She explores the potential of resistance and agency for local residents in conflicts over green space with the municipality, as well as the importance of including coproduction in urban greening projects to achieve more just and equitable outcomes for marginalised populations.
Paula de Prado-Bert
Postdoctoral Researcher
Paula is an early-career researcher focused on public health and environmental justice. She has a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona, a MSc in Public Health (M.P.H), and a PhD in Biomedicine, specialising in Public Health and Epidemiology. She developed her predoctoral research at the Institute of Global Health in Barcelona (ISGlobal) within the Childhood and Environment programme, on the underlying biological mechanisms of early life environmental exposures mainly in urban areas, with special focus on air pollution and maternal smoking. At BCNUEJ she collaborates on the GreenME project exploring the interconnections within health, green, and blue space policies. Her research delves into assessing the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and cause-and-effect pathways of nature-based therapy, while also formulating practical solutions and co-creating policies to be implemented. (Languages: Catalan, Spanish, English)
Eider Etxeberria
Researcher
Eider holds a double bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences and biology from the University of Navarra. Currently, she is currently completing a Master of Science in Geo-Information Sciences (GIS) at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. As an intern at BCNUEJ, she is part of the ERC research project ClimateJusticeReady. She is interested in improving the synergy between nature and humans in urban settings,aiming not only for ecological balance but also to enhance urban well-being and sustainability. Her research interests also cover environmental justice and feminist urbanism, where Geographic Information Systems can play a key role on facilitating the exploration on the spatial dynamics. This interdisciplinary approach underscores her dedication to advancing our understanding of the intricate interplay between urban ecosystems and socio-environmental concerns. (Languages: Spanish, Basque, English)
Brian Rosa
Postdoctoral researcher
Brian joined the lab in 2024 as a core member, where he was previously an affiliated researcher. He leads the work package for the ReHousIn project. Rosa holds an MRP in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a PhD in Human Geography from The University of Manchester. Before relocating to Barcelona in 2018, he was Assistant Professor of Urban Studies and Geography, as well as founding director of the Queens College City Lab, at the City University of New York (CUNY). In Barcelona, Rosa has been a Visiting Professor and Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, as well as a Fundació ‘La Caixa’ Research Fellow at the Department of Geography and Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research has focused on deindustrialization and urban redevelopment, urban infrastructure, political debates about built heritage, working-class memory, gentrification, and urban political ecology, with an emphasis on visual and creative methods. (Languages: English, Spanish)
Affiliated Researchers
Mariana Arcaya
Mariana is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Health, and Associate Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is a social epidemiologist and urban planner whose work explores dynamic relationships between geographic contexts, particularly neighborhoods and health. Prior to coming joining the MIT faculty in 2015, Mariana served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She holds a Doctorate of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a Master of City Planning from MIT's Department of Urban Studies & Planning.
Lucía Argüelles
Lucía holds a PhD in Environmental Science and Technology (Cum Laude, 2018) from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, an MSc in Environmental Studies from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (2012). Her research interests are environmental governance, food politics and policy, urban-rural politics, agrarian studies, environmental privilege and food gentrification. Her PhD thesis interrogated the role of power and privilege in the construction and expansion of an alternative-provisioning strategy for social change, paying special attention to alternative food and community-organized energy provisioning initiatives.
Fulvia Calcagni
Fulvia holds a Joint European Master Degree in Environmental Studies focused on Cities and Sustainability (JEMES-CiSu) and a Bachelor Degree in Environmental Engineering from the Tor Vergata University of Rome.
Aiming to perform holistic assessments and provide tools for public decision-making, her work develops at the intersection between the ecological and human realm. She is currently focusing on cultural ecosystem services in order to deal with the existing complex interrelationships that challenge the urban and peri-urban environment. Pursuing participative and inclusive forms of assessment, she seeks to understand their potential in enhancing ecosystem protection, community building and urban resilience.
David Camacho
David holds an MSc in Interdisciplinary Studies in Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability from ICTA-UAB with a specialization in Urban & Industrial Ecology and a BA in Economics from Metropolitan University (Venezuela). His master thesis assesses the current state of urban green infrastructure inside and around schools in Barcelona and the equity implications of its distribution. David is interested in the environmental justice of urban planning and its implications when it comes to the wellbeing of vulnerable individuals.
Elsa Gallez
Elsa is from Belgium and holds a bachelor degree in Geography from the University of Namur. As part of her Msc in Urban Environmental Management at the University of Wageningen (Netherlands), she takes part in the GREENLULUs project, in which she will help with the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on green gentrification. Fascinated by Jane Jacobs activism and her contemporary relevance, Elsa is interested in examining socio-economic dynamics in cities and the challenges and opportunities that new sustainable projects bring to urban areas in relation to equity.
Gustavo García-Lopez
Gustavo Garcia-Lopez holds a joint PhD in Environmental Policy and Political Sciences from Indiana University-Bloomington, an MPhil in Environmental Policy from Cambridge University, and a BSc in Environmental Sciences with a minor in Geography from the University of Puerto Rico- Rio Piedras. His work, currently focused on Mexico and in his native Puerto Rico, revolves around the politics of collective action focusing on the relation between social mobilization, state rule, the emergence and scaling-up of commons initiatives, and the transformative potential of these initiatives. He is a member of Entitle and a contributor of collective's political ecology blog.
Santiago Gorostiza
Santi is an environmental historian, environmental scientist and political ecologist working on modern and early modern Spanish history. He completed his PhD at the Centro de Estudos Sociais of Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal) as a Marie Curie ITN fellow of the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE). His doctoral research, concluded in 2017, examined how the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Francoist victory and state-building efforts transformed the country’s socioecological relations and landscapes, both materially and symbolically. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at ICTA-UAB, as part of the María de Maeztu unit of excellence, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.
Kathryn Gougelet
Kathryn is a medical and environmental anthropologist specialized in human/environmental health in peri-urban regions affected by petrochemical pollution. She holds a BA in environmental studies from Dartmouth College, an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from The University of Arizona, and an MA in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she is currently working towards her doctoral degree in anthropology. Her doctoral research will take place in Tarragona, Catalunya, Spain, focusing on ecosyndemic health concerns, the uneven spread of environmental contaminants, and advocacy for environmental justice.
Johannes Langemeyer
Johannes obtained a Joint European Master in Environmental Studies before obtaining a doctorate degree in Sustainability Science from the Stockholm University (Stockholm Resilience Centre) and in Environmental Science and Technology from ICTA UAB. He is a transdisciplinary researcher focused on urban social-ecological systems and their complexities, such as the pluralism of values people hold in relation to green spaces. He addresses urban planning through approaches derived from urban ecology and ecological economics to better understand the relationship between urban green infrastructure and human health and well-being.
Emilia Lewartowska
Emilia is a PhD candidate at Roskilde University in Denmark. Her research investigates alternative communities that challenge mainstream ideas about development and green transition at the intersection of post-development, degrowth, and feminist studies. Her dissertation focuses on radical democratic practices in grassroot communities in rural India, and their role in spurring social change and prefiguring sustainable futures. Emilia holds an MA in International Development and Global Studies from Roskilde University and a BA in International Studies from Trento University. (Languages: Pol, Ita, Eng, Esp)
Toni López
Toni is an Urban Demographer working on neighborhood change and population dynamics. He is currently a ‘Talent’ researcher at the Department of Geography of the UAB and at the Center for Demographic Studies (CED-CERCA). He holds a PhD in Demography (UAB) and a Bachelor Degree in Geography (UB). His research agenda focuses on the socio-spatial transformation of urban areas and the impact of processes as gentrification or touristification in the sociodemographic composition of the population. He also studies the role of residential mobility modifying the socio-spatial configuration of cities, the human capital flight in interregional movements and the attraction of global cities to high skilled migrants.
Nick Martin
Nick obtained a Bachelor of Engineering (Environmental) at the University of Queensland before working for many years as a professional engineer specializing in flood and tidal inundation modelling, water management and flood hazard planning. In recent years he returned to full-time study, completing a Master’s at ICTA-UAB and the Technische Universität Hamburg as part of the Joint European Master in Environmental Studies - Cities & Sustainability (JEMES CiSu) program. He joins the BCNUEJ team as a data technician specializing in GIS and statistical analysis of data within the GreenLULUs project.
Carmen Pérez del Pulgar Frowein
Carmen graduated in Political Science at the Universidad Computense de Madrid and holds an MSc in Human Geography from the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She researches the environmental justice of urban spaces and explores the ways in which race, gender and class shape the experiences and the perceptions of their residents. She is particularly interested in the factors that determine the dynamics and conflicts around the greening of cities, and in the role of citizens in the construction of new meanings and models of environmentally resilient and just cities.
María Ruiz de Gopegui
María holds a Bachelor and MSc in Architecture with a specialization in Landscape and Environment (University of Navarra, 2011) and a MSc in Urban Management and Development (Erasmus University, 2018). She has participated and coordinated urban/landscape design projects related to sustainability and urban regeneration and in 2018 she joined the BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change. She is currently pursuing her PhD at ICTA-UAB, exploring the links between urban development, climate adaptation and social justice.
Filka Sekulova
Filka holds Bachelor Degrees in Psychology at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and in Economics and Business from the Universiteit van Amsterdam, a Masters in Environmental Economics and Transport from Vrije Universiteit, and a PhD in Climate Change Economics and Happiness from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She is a member of the academic think-tank Research & Degrowth, working towards the establishment of degrowth as an academic field and an applied concept in university teaching and beyond. Prior to starting her doctoral studies, she worked in an international NGO focusing on environmental and economic justice in the Global South.
Galia Shokry
Galia has a PhD in Environmental Science from ICTA-UAB, an MSc from the Dept. of Sociology of the London School of Economics, a Master of Urban Studies and Planning from the Ecole d’Urbanisme de Paris (Paris XII), and a Bachelor of International Relations from Boston University. Her research is situated at the intersection of climate risk, resilience and displacement. She focuses on understanding the urban socio-spatial dynamics of climate (in)justice through investigating the social and racial inequities embedded in climate adaptation planning. In particular, her research explores how green and climate resilient infrastructure may actually lead to the increased vulnerability of historically marginalized groups over time. (Languages: Eng, French, Persian, Spa)
Aaron Vansintjan
Aaron holds an MSc in Natural Resource Sciences from McGill University and a BA in Philosophy with a Minor in Environment from McGill University. He is a PhD candidate at the University of London, Birkbeck, co-supervised by Isabelle Anguelovski. His research broadly focuses on urban food justice and he currently investigates the effect of gentrification on food access of marginalized communities, and how people may use food to resist or challenge development narratives. As such, his research draws on urban geography, urban political ecology, ecological economics, and food studies. He is co-editor at Uneven Earth, an environmental politics website.
Alessandro Busà
Alessandro is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the SGGE of the University of Leicester, UK and holds a PhD in Theory of Urban Planning from the Technical University of Berlin. His current MSCA project "SUSTEUS” explores the socioeconomic impact of environmentally sustainable redevelopment plans on communities in social housing estates in EU and US cities. He was a fellow at the TGK Transatlantic Graduate Research Program Berlin – New York of the Center for Metropolitan Studies, and a visiting scholar at GSAPP of Columbia University. His book titled “The Creative Destruction of New York City” was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. His recent research focuses on speculative geographies of green investment and on the uneven impacts of finance-mediated greening initiatives in cities and urban regions.
Melissa García Lamarca
Melissa García-Lamarca is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow working on the CLIMATEJUSTHOME project at DIST, Polytechnic of Turin, and is a member of the Beyond Inhabitation Lab and an associated researcher with BCNUEJ. With a PhD in Geography from the University of Manchester, she held Spanish- and ERC-funded postdoctoral positions from 2016-2022 at ICTA-UAB with BCNUEJ. Her work untangles the lived experiences of housing financialisation and collective struggles towards housing justice, as well as the financial and real estate related dimensions of urban green inequalities. Melissa is a member of the Radical Housing Journal editorial collective, and has over fifteen years of experience working as a consultant in a sustainability workers cooperative, a researcher, teacher and project coordinator in Spain, Canada and internationally. (Languages: Cat, Spa, Eng)
Beatriz Pierri Daunt
Dr. Beatriz Pierri Daunt is a post-doctoral researcher at the Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and an affiliated researcher at BCNUEJ lab. Beatriz holds a PhD in Geography, a BSc and a MSc in Ecology. Beatriz's research focuses on understanding the role of policies in fostering land change and socioeconomic transformation, by analyzing the urban expansion process and modeling drivers of land change. Her ongoing project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and aims to assess the role of urban planning instruments in fostering the different patterns of urban expansion in Latin American and Caribbean metropolitan areas. (Languages: Port, Eng, Spa)
Katelyn McVay
Katelyn is a Master of City Planning student at MIT and will be an incoming Ph.D. student at Emory University's Environmental Health Sciences program in 2024. She received her bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Global Health, Environmental Studies, and Botany. Katelyn is passionate about bridging the gaps between urban planning and public health through environmental justice-based research. She's worked on various projects relating to nature therapy, climate change, and air pollution in relation to population health outcomes. She is especially interested on issues relating to post-industrial cities in the United States and how public health research in these places can lead to more equitable outcomes for various population groups. (Languages: Eng)
Rebecca Houston-Read
Rebecca is a Master in City Planning Candidate at MIT. Her research interests include environmental justice, mental health, and participatory action research. Since 2019, she has been a researcher on MIT’s Healthy Neighborhoods Study, where she collaborates with academic and community partners to study the relationship between health and neighborhood change. Rebecca also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Wesleyan University. (Languages: Eng)
Rita Calvário
Rita holds a PhD in Environmental Science and Technology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and MSc in Environmental Studies and Territory Planning from the New University of Lisbon, and a BSc in Agricultural Sciences with a minor in Rural Sociology and Economics from the University of Lisbon. Her research focuses on alternative food networks, food justice and food sovereignty, agrarian social movements, labour and gender issues. Her current research examines the situation and struggles of rural women in agriculture in Southern Europe from a gender and feminist perspective. She is a member of Undisciplined Environments, a network of activists and researchers in political ecology. (Languages: Eng, Spa, Por)
Ana Polgár
Ana is a doctoral researcher at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her work focuses on the intersection of participatory methods and GIS for evaluating the environmental and social impacts of planning interventions, specifically those enhancing climate resilience. Her doctoral research explores how nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation impact socio-spatial inequalities in cities of the Global South. She aims to create an accessible method for assessing the relationships between the distribution of such interventions and socio-environmental vulnerabilities in urban data-poor environments. Before pursuing her Ph.D., Ana worked as an urban planner and project manager, specializing in nature-based solutions and locally-led adaptation for integrated urban water management, food security, biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation. Ana is a Fellow at PlanAdapt, a global organization supporting climate change adaptation and risk management in the Global South. She holds an MSc in Spatial Planning, specialized in Cities, Water, and Climate Change from Radboud University. (Languages: Eng, Spa)
Ana Terra Amorim-Maia
Ana Terra holds a diploma in Environmental Engineering from the University of São Paulo, Brazil and a joint European Masters in Environmental Studies - Cities and Sustainability from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (2018). She developed her previous research with BCNUEJ assessing the hidden drivers of green gentrification in Barcelona within the framework of cultural ecosystem services. Her current research explores climate adaptation planning and action from an intersectional justice perspective, with a particular focus on the urban equity implications of climate refuges and shelters. (Languages: Portuguese, Eng, Spa, German, French)
Francesc Baró
Francesc is Asst. Professor at the Geography and Sociology Departments of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium, where he leads an interdisciplinary research line on urban ecology. He is also an associate senior researcher with BCNUEJ, where he co-leads the research line “Urban Climate Risk, Infrastructure, and Justice”. His research aims to contribute to the understanding of urban nature's role towards more just, (climate) resilient, healthy and sustainable cities, combining geospatial and advanced quantitative and qualitative data analyses, including participatory methods. He has participated in several EU-funded research projects (URBES, OpenNESS, Naturvation, GreenLULUs, etc.) with multiple roles and responsibilities. Since 2022, he is the co-PI of the European project “Coolschools”, a partnership of 16 organizations including universities, local governments, SMEs and international NGOs examining the role of climate nature-based solutions in school environments. (Languages: Catalan, Spanish, English & French).
James Connolly
James is an affiliated researcher and research line co-leader of BCNUEJ and Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. Previously he was Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Northeastern University and obtained a PhD in Urban Planning from Columbia University where his research was supported by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. His research examines how cities are made greener and more socially just. His publications examine green gentrification and land use politics, particularly the dynamics of coalition building across community development and mainstream environmental coalitions. He is interested in the spatial and political structure of institutions that shape urban environmental land use policy and how these are changed. He co-leads the research line "Urban Climate Risk, Infrastructures, and Justice" at BCNUEJ. (Languages: Eng, Spa)
Julia Neidig
Julia is a PhD candidate at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) and ICTA-UAB. Her research looks at narratives and values surrounding urban greening interventions, both on the political and societal level, working at the intersection of urban geography, political ecology and urban planning. Focusing on the case city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, she is especially interested in the ways citizens can be involved in planning, through co-producing of new green narratives beyond mainstream framings. Julia holds a M.Sc. in Global Studies from Gothenburg University and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Münster. (Languages: German, Eng, Spa)
Giulia Benati
Giulia holds a MSc in Environmental Engineering focused on Sustainable Urban Planning, and a BSc in Environmental Engineering, from La Sapienza University of Rome. She has been a guest researcher at the IRI-THESys research institute of Humboldt University of Berlin. She is interested in the human-nature interaction in cities, and in how decision makers can foster ecosystems protection while enabling access to urban nature for all. Her doctoral research aims to the assessment of a holistic index of the quality of green urban spaces through an ecosystem services perspective. She is currently focusing on the assessment of cultural ecosystem services offered by green urban spaces through social media data and the implication of their distribution on environmental justice. Before starting her PhD, she worked in the private and public sector, and was an urban environmental planner for the City of Rome. (Languages: Ita, Eng, Spa)
Valeria Cuenca
Valeria holds a Bachelor's degree on Health Biology from the University of Alcalá and a Master's in Public Health from the Pompeu Fabra University. She joined BCNUEJ to carry out the quantitative research arm of the FEMPUBLICBCN project, included in her master's thesis. She explored the relationships between use of public spaces, gentrification processes and women's health during the COVID-19 pandemic. After her internship, she is working at the Public Health and Epicemiology Research Group from University of Alcalá and collaborates in research projects with an environmental justice perspective and participatory action methods. Her academic interests include urban environment, socioeconomic disparities, and their impacts on health equity. (Languages: Spanish, English)
Staff
Ana Cañizares
Communications Officer
Ana is a freelance journalist and editor specialized in architecture, urbanism and cities. Born in Spain, she grew up in California to Cuban parents, graduated in Communications while living in London and has been based in Barcelona for 20 years. As communications officer for BCNUEJ, she handles social media, edits blog content and manages the website and press inquiries to help promote the lab's research.