ResCitiesLab People
Professor Jon Coaffee (Director)
Jon is Professor in Urban Geography in the Department of Politics & International Studies and director of the Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities (WISC). Prior to this he held a Chair in Spatial Planning and Urban Resilience at the University of Birmingham where he was the Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies and previously held faculty positions at the Universities of Newcastle and Manchester in urban regeneration, architecture and town planning where he has developed and taught on Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) accredited courses. His research focuses upon the interplay of physical and socio-political aspects of urban resilience and he has also published widely, especially on the impact of terrorism and other security concerns on the functioning of urban areas. During this research he has worked closely with a range of private and governmental stakeholders to ensure his research has real world impact. This work has been published in multiple disciplinary areas such as geography, town planning, political science and civil engineering. Most notably he published Terrorism Risk and the City (2003), The Everyday Resilience of the City (2008), Terrorism Risk and the Global City: Towards Urban Resilience (2009) and Sustaining and Securing the Olympic City (2011). His work has been supported by a significant number of EU and UK Research Council grants. Jon is an Exchange Professor at New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).
Dr Rob Rowlands (Manager)
Rob is the manager of the Resilient Cities Laboratory. He is a highly experienced social researcher and project manager whose background is in urban planning. Over the past decade he has successfully developed and managed strong portfolio of research projects for clients and funding bodies which include the European Commission, UK Government departments and agencies, UK Research Councils, third sector organisations and the private sector. Rob currently manages a range of multi-disciplinary city-related projects at Warwick located within the Resilient Cities Laboratory.
Dr Jonathan Clarke
Jonathan is a Research Fellow in the Resilient Cities Laboratory. His research considers how the resilience of critical infrastructure might be enhanced, how a wider range of stakeholders might be integrate within this and the social extension of risk management practices, as well as ways to initiate more transformative practice and long-term thinking within the sector. He joined the Lab as a Doctoral Research Student in 2013 contributing to the DESURBS project where his research explored the role that urban design, planning and governance might make to enhanced city resilience. Jonathan is an experienced urban designer, planner and chartered landscape architect, specialising in regeneration, masterplanning, environmental impact assessment and public realm design. He is a professional practice examiner for the Landscape Institute and an expert panel member for MADE.
Dr George Christou
George is Associate Professor of European Politics in the Department for Politics and International Studies. His research background is in the politics of European governance, in particular the governance and regulation of the internet. He has contributed to the ESRC project 'European Regulation of Internet Commerce' (2003-2004) and the resulting book, 'The New Electronic Market Place: European Governance Strategies in a Globalising Economy' (Edward Elgar, 2007), the NATO-ACT funded Project PREDICT (Projections and Relevant Effects of Demographic Implications, Changes, and Trends) (http://predicters.org/), and the ESRC/DSTL project 'Science and Security: Research Impact and Co-Production of Knowledge' (as Co-I) (March 1013-March2015). He is currently a member of the Warwick team in the RESILENS project.
Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly
Charlotte is Assistant Professor in Politics and International Studies. Her research focuses on the impact of terrorism on place including the recover of place and space from terrorism and violence. She has held a Warwick Research Fellowship (2012-13), an Institute of Advanced Study Postdoctoral Fellowship (2013-15) and a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (2015-18). She has recently completed a British Academy funded study, Securing through the Failure to Secure: Reclaiming the Sites of Terrorist Attack, which considered the projects rebuilding upon post-terrorist space. Her current research, 'The Political Life of Rubble: Bombsite Relics and Cosmopolitan Identity', is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Dr João Porto de Albuquerque
João is Associate Professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies. His research is centred on the study of collaborative and geospatial relationships in sociotechnical information systems. This investigates the relationships between collaboratively-produced information (e.g. volunteered geographic information from social media, collaborative maps, and citizen sensing) and other official data sources (e.g. environmental sensors and socioeconomic data) for improving our understanding about urban contexts and supporting decision-making to make them more resilient to the threats of natural hazards. His most recent research has focused on urban resilience to flooding as demonstrated in the AGORA project and the development of the Open Flood Risk Map.
Vangelis Pitidis
Vangelis is a PhD student at the Centre for Doctoral Training for Urban Science and Progress based at WISC. His research is focused on the incorporation of resilient practices in urban planning policies and in particular focuses on the quantification of resilience in dissimilar urban environments.
Katherine Harris
Katherine is a PhD student based at WISC. She has worked in geo-technical and environmental consultancy and in this role she encountered land development proposals which had not fully considered the potential use or value of geo-resources underlying the sites. Her research doctoral aims to develop a model which can quantify the relationship between urban design and geo-resources as a mean of contributing towards improving the resilience of urban design in cities in the future.
Melissa Kenny
Melissa is a PhD student based at WISC. Melissa’s research interests lie in sustainable urban growth and development. Her focus is on the prediction and management of urbanisation in extreme and remote environments, in particular the Arctic region.
Isabella Slattery
Isabella is a PhD student based at WISC. She has worked in commercial and more recently residential property development as a Land and Development Manager in various UK and European Cities. More recently she was the Head of Affordable Housing at CBRE UK based in London. Her doctoral research aims to define factors that are present in a city’s built environment that contribute directly to its quality of life.
Philip Ulbrich
Philip is a PhD student based at WISC. His experience working in urban and regional development and infrastructure projects in the UK and Latin America led him to develop a particular interest in the interconnected nature of infrastructure and the evolutionary nature of the urban system in which it is embedded. His doctoral research focuses on the use of citizen-generated data for urban systems decision-making to make cities resilient and sustainable.