Biography

With an academic background in business (BSc Hons. Management, Warwick Business School, 2006) and economic development (MSc Local Economic Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2010) I have worked in business, government and consulting. My experience includes urban and regional development and infrastructure projects in the UK and Latin America as well as foreign direct investment attraction for national and municipal governments in the UK, Europe and Canada.

Transdisciplinary integration and the recognition of interdependencies within the urban system have in the recent years received a new impetus due to the increased political and societal focus on development that reduces climate related harm while maximising human development. Localised implementation of the globally defined policy goals, notably through participatory exercises with community members and other stakeholders, is an integral methodological aspect of these frameworks. Yet, the localisation approach for the implementation of policies and interventions is not mirrored in monitoring progress towards achieving those goals. This discrepancy reduces the ability to obtain a differentiated understanding of the adequacy and effectiveness of the interventions that result from these localisation processes in implementation, in the form of evaluation that goes beyond cumulative outcome measures. Importantly, it also limits the understanding of causal interactions between policy sectors as well as of socio-spatial trade-offs that mediate the risk-development nexus and which may differ across neighbourhoods, especially in cities with high intersecting inequalities that manifest in multiple forms.

In the context of calls for research into the implementation of equitable resilience, my primary focus is on the localisation of urban measurement and indicator frameworks, such as the SDGs and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in cities in the global South. My research aims to provide urban monitoring stakeholders ranging from global (for example UN SDG custodian agencies), country (e.g. national statistics offices) and city levels, including municipal planning offices and community groups, with methodological approaches for co-creating recalibrating global measurement frameworks to meaningfully and inclusively account for risk and vulnerability differentials in poorer urban neighbourhoods.

My research is jointly supervised by Professor Jon Coaffee and Professor João Porto de Albuquerque.