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Prof Clare Melhuish - Director and Principal Research Fellow
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Clare Melhuish's IRIS profile
Core Team
- Prof Nishat Awan, Departmental Tutor, Global Urbanism MASc
- Nishat is Professor of Architecture & Visual Culture. Her research focuses on the intersection of geopolitics and space, including questions related to diasporas, migration and border regimes. She is interested in modes of spatial representation, particularly in relation to the digital and the limits of witnessing as a form ethical engagement with distant places.
- Dr Kara Blackmore, Curator, Urban Room
- An anthropologist and curator who specialises in community-driven exhibition making, Kara has an established track record in developing innovative collaborations between educational institutions, government agencies, NGOs, and cultural organisations.
- Sophie Mepham, Centre Manager
- Sophie manages the day-to-day operations of Urban Lab, its public engagement activities and longer-term planning. She holds an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from UCL and is interested in cultural development, museum studies and critical heritage.
- Dr Njogu Morgan, Lecturer, Global Urbanism MASc
- Njogu is remotely based at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, supporting Urban Lab's partnership with Wits through collaborative delivery of Global Urbanism MASc. His research focuses on sustainable transport and mobility in African cities, exploring the intersections between place, space, society and everyday bicycling.
- Dr Joe Penny, Lecturer and Programme Director, Global Urbanism MASc
- Joe's research interests sit between urban economic geography and urban planning, with a focus on issues of urban social justice in his adopted home city, London, especially: lived experience and governance of austerity urbanism; the restructuring of local state action through financialisaton of public land, housing, and social infrastructure; urban politics and grassroots resistance to austerity, gentrification and displacement.
Wider Team
- Co-Directors
Pushpa Arabindoo
- Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Design
Wastelands; urbanisation, public space and political activism in India; cities and climate change. Matthew Beaumont
- Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature
Night-time city; utopia in fiction writing; urban representations; thinking the city. Camillo Boano
- Professor of Urban Design and Critical Theory
Housing urbanism; urban development, contested urbanism, socio-spatial dialectics, design and urban transformations, and shelter and housing reconstruction in geographies of the global south. Ellie Cosgrave
- Lecturer in Urban Innovation and Co-Director of UCL Urban Innovation and Policy Laboratory
Feminist cities; urban and local governance; city leadership; engineering design; smart cities; sustainable urban environments; choreographing the city. Andrew Harris
- Senior Lecturer in Geography and Urban Studies
Art, space and the city; creative cities; gentrification; urban infrastructure; vertical urbanism. Jennifer Robinson
- Chair of Human Geography
South Africa, including studies of segregation and state power; the politics of urban development; comparative urbanism; city strategies and the circulation of urban policy. - Steering Committee
Ben Campkin
- Professor of Urbanism and Urban History
Histories, theories and practices of urbanism and urbanisation; transdisciplinary urbanism and experimental methods of urban research, publication and public engagement; urban night spaces, cultures and governance; London’s history and built environment; contemporary urban policy and practice in London; queer space, architecture and architectural histories; heritage associated with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer populations. Yasminah Beebeejaun
- Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning
Race and territorialisation, decision-making processes, community organising, nationhood debates, colonialism Joseph Cook
- UCL Citizen Science Academy Lead
Citizen science; anthropology of work; anthropology of architecture; community engagement; transient communities; social prescribing; healthcare architecture Ava Fatah gen. Schieck
- Reader in Media Architecture and Urban Digital Interaction
Architecture and Interaction Design; Ubiquitous Computing and Urban Design; digital media technologies Kalliopi Fouseki
- Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Heritage
Museology, cultural heritage, anthropology, reception studies, heritage management and public archaeology Mark Frost
- Associate Professor of Public History
Singapore; public histories; war remembrance, European colonialism Haidy Geismar
- Professor of Anthropology
Intellectual and cultural property, indigenous rights, new forms of cultural representation, the anthropology of art, critical museology and the South Pacific Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou
- Lecturer in Social Theory
Political sociology, nationalism studies, radical imagination and speculative futures, financialisation, risk and debt practices, housing movements James O'Leary
- Associate Professor in Architecture
(On sabbatical until 08 January 2024)
Contemporary Art & Architecture; Situated Practice; Narrative Environments; Urban Memory; Contested Space; Belfast Peacewalls Anna Maguire
- Lecturer in Public History
Public history, migration, war and empire in twentieth century Britain and the British Empire, history education, co-production and collaboration public history approaches Gabriele Manoli
- Lecturer in Environmental Engineering
Ecohydrology; cities-biosphere interactions; urban green spaces; mathematical modelling Susan Moore
- Senior Lecturer in Planning
Sustainable urban development processes and practices; Relational geographies of urban (and suburban) development and built form Gabriel Moshenska
- Associate Professor in Archaeology
Public history, archaeologies of modern conflict, heritage studies, intellectual history, children in conflict and the impact of trauma, play, materiality and place-making in children's lives Michał Murawski
- Assistant Professor in Critical Area Studies
Architecture and planning of Eastern European communism; social condensers; Warsaw and Moscow; curatorial and art practice methodologies Florian Mussgnug
- Reader in Italian and Comparative Literature
Catastrophe and apocalypse in comparative literature, including climate change fiction; Cold War culture and existential risk; Rome Catalina Ortiz
- Associate Professor, Development Planning Unit
Urban and regional planning; human geography; development studies; urban design
Kieren Reed
- Professor of Fine Art
Sculpture; performance; installation; public art; culture-led regeneration
Katherine Saunders-Hastings
- Lecturer in Latin American Studies
Violence; (in)security; illicit economies; citizenship; governance in Latin American cities Rafael Schacter
- Research Fellow in Anthropology
Independent public art; street art and graffiti; visual culture; vernacular art; popular politics; public sphere; anthropology of art; material culture Pablo Sendra
- Lecturer in Planning and Urban Design
Social housing; community-led regeneration; co-design and collaborative planning processes; activism and grassroots initiatives; self-organisation, citizen-led and informal urban practices; public space; urban design, inclusivity and social interaction; social infrastructure Helena Titheridge
- Professor of Mobility and Sustainable Transport
Sustainable systems, transport planning - Artists in Residence and Creative Fellows
- Nicola Baldwin (2019/20)
- Tom Wolseley (2015/16)
- Max Colson (2014/15)
- Rab Harling (2013/14)
- B.J. Nilsen (2012)
- Carolyn Deby (2011/12)
- Research Fellow
- Alessio Kolioulis
- International Advisory Board
- Professor Michele Acuto (University of Melbourne)
- Dr İpek Akpınar (Istanbul Technical University)
- Professor Karen Bakker (University of British Columbia)
- Professor Stephen Barber (Kingston University)
- Professor Neil Brenner (Harvard University)
- Professor Mustafa Dikec (École d'urbanisme de Paris)
- Dr Paul Dobraszczyk (Researcher and author)
- Mr Michael Edwards (University College London)
- Professor Adrian Forty (University College London)
- Professor Susanne Frank (TU Dortmund University)
- Professor Jane M. Jacobs (Yale-NUS College)
- Professor Roger Keil (York University, Toronto)
- Professor Patrick LeGales (Sciences Po Paris)
- Professor Jorge Francisco Liernur (Torcuato Di Tella University)
- Professor Julia Lossau (University of Bremen)
- Professor Ayodeji Olukoju (Caleb University, Lagos)
- Dr Vyjayanthi Venuturupalli Rao (Terreform Centre for Advanced Urban Research)
- Dr Rebecca Ross (Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design)
- Dr Matti Siemiatycki (University of Toronto)
- Professor AbdouMaliq Simone (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity)
- Professor Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester University)
- Dr Karen Till (National University of Ireland Maynooth)
- Prof Bas van Heur (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
- Visiting Researchers
Current researchers
- Dr Rebecca Ross
- Prof Philip Harrison
- Prof George Owusu
- Dr Evance Mwathunga
- Prof Wilbard Kombe
- Dr Sylvia Croese
Past visiting researchers
- Students
Current Urban Laboratory affiliated doctoral candidates:
- Sidra Ahmed
- Killian Doherty
- Raffaella Fryer-Moreira
- Clemency Gibbs
- Fernando Gutierrez Hernandez
- Irene Manzini Ceinar
- Lubaina Mirza
- Braulio Morera
- Hamish Muir
- Giles Omezi
- Isobel Pagendam
- Sol Perez Martinez
- Justinien Tribillon
- Claire Malaika Tunnacliffe
- Adam Walls
Recently completed PhDs
- Dr Johan Andersson
- Dr Sabina Andron
- Dr Nicola Antaki
- Prof Sigi Atteneder
- Dr Tom Bolton
- Dr Katy Beinart
- Dr John Bingham-Hall
- Dr Brent Carnell
- Dr Pei Sze Chow
- Dr David Gissen
- Dr Pooya Ghoddousi
- Dr Mohamad Hafeda
- Dr Sophie Handler
- Dr Clare Herrick
- Dr Joseph Hillier
- Dr Sandra Jasper
- Dr Karolina Kendall-Bush
- Dr Regan Koch
- Dr Fani Kostourou
- Dr Torsten Lange
- Dr Lucrezia Lennert
- Dr Leah Lovett
- Dr Samuel Merrill
- Dr Leandro Minuchin
- Dr Louis Moreno
- Dr Hiroaki Ohashi
- Dr Dimitris Panayotopoulos
- Dr Alexandra Parsons
- Dr Alex Pavey
- Dr Regner Ramos
- Dr David Roberts
- Dr Enora Robin
- Dr Melanie Brickman Stynes
- Dr Myfanwy Taylor
- Dr Tse-Hui Teh
- Dr Ophelie Véron
- Dr Valerie Viehoff
- Dr Astrid Wood
- Dr Stamatis Zografos
- Dr Saffron Woodcraft
- Vicente Sandoval
- Alexia Sawyer
- Mohammed Bakkali
- Jae-Sung Chon
- Ana Maria Muñoz Boudet
- ThienVinh Nguyen
- Aaron Mo
- Kristen Hartmann
- Charlotte Jones