| Janelle Knox-Hayes (she/her) is the Lister Brothers Professor of Economic Geography and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning (DUSP) and leads the RCL as its Director. She holds a visiting research fellowship at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University. Her research focuses on how social and environmental systems are governed under changing temporal and spatial scales as a consequence of globalization. She has studied the political and economic interface of financial markets and environmental systems and how individuals and organizations plan and make decisions under conditions of socioeconomic uncertainty. Her recent projects examine how social values shape sustainable development. Janelle has received an SSRC Abe Fellowship for studying environmental finance in the Asia-Pacific and a Fulbright Fellowship for studying sustainable decision-making in Iceland. As Head of the Environmental Policy & Planning Group at MIT, she integrates environmental and sustainability concerns—including new pedagogical programs on Cities and Climate Change and a new research and teaching cluster on Indigenous Community Planning—into teaching, research, and practice that connects DUSP with Institute-wide initiatives and programs. She also leads the MIT Climate Consortium Climate Policy Working Group. Concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion, she serves as the Co-Director of the School of Architecture & Planning Faculty Diversity Committee, the SA+P representative for the Institute’s Ad Hoc Indigenous Working Group, and as an advisory board member to the SOLVE Indigenous Fellowship. She is the author of a number of peer-reviewed works in prestigious journals and presses. She serves as an editor of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society. Janelle has a PhD in Geography & Environment, MS in Nature, Society, & Environmental Policy from Oxford University, and a BA in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder. | |
| Stephen Hart (he/him) is a Research Associate at the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism serving as the Program Manager of the RCL. His research interests include climate adaptation & resiliency, biodiversity conservation, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and environmental justice. He has an MPA in Environmental Science & Policy from Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs and a BA in Environmental Studies & Political Science from the University of Vermont. For his graduate capstone, he served on a team of researchers consulting the IUCN on how to scale up the Restoration Barometer to help countries streamline reporting and tracking progress towards global targets such as the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, the Bonn Challenge, The Paris Agreement, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Developing a policy tool to help member countries evaluate their ecosystem restoration governance regimes. Before working at MIT, Stephen was the Research Program Manager at an international environmental charity. In this role, he helped manage a global research portfolio focused on connecting people with communities, advancing scientific discovery, developing corporate partnerships for sustainability, and conserving the planet. Working closely with Principal Investigators on their research to ensure science was rigorous, relevant, and impactful. As the Research Program Manager, he also tracked the impacts of field-based research projects on local ecological systems, social-cultural systems, management plans, and regional, national, and international policies. And he supported the creation of a strong coalition of partners with NGOs, research institutions, companies, and key decision-makers to enhance the delivery of programs. | |
| Kevin Fan Hsu (he/him) is a PhD student in Infrastructure and Climate Planning at DUSP and a member of the RCL team. He has worked on clean energy and sustainable development initiatives on both sides of the Pacific, including the United States, China, and Singapore. His current research addresses strategies to accelerate the delivery of climate infrastructure while ensuring respect for community rights, in hopes that the ongoing climate transition can be more equitable, inclusive, and democratic. He co-founded Infrastructure x Equity, a group that works with government officials, green businesses, and development professionals to transform how infrastructure projects are delivered for present and future generations, and previously taught sustainability and civic design courses at Stanford University. At MIT, he is an organizer of the MIT Climate Planning Forum, a cross-departmental intiative with a focus on bridging policy formulation and implementation. Kevin holds an M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Stanford University and an M.S. in Cultural Heritage Management from Johns Hopkins University. | |
| Michelle Lin (they/them) is a PhD student in the Human Systems Lab in the MIT Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics. They are a NASA Space Technology Graduate Fellow focused on creating an architectural design framework to mitigate behavioral health risks in long-duration spaceflight passively. They use a blended interdisciplinary approach to their work, combining bio-astronautical engineering, statistics, psychology, anthropology, and human-centered design. As a non-gender conforming, indigenous Taiwanese, queer, first-generation immigrant, Michelle has experienced the juxtaposition of exclusion in academic spaces and deep privilege from their education, which drives Michelle to demand justice and equity for marginalized communities. They aim to broaden their space habitat research applications to encompass isolated, confined, extreme, and resource-limited environments beyond spaceflight, such as in disaster-affected areas or for refugee and unhoused populations. Their research interests include psychological resilience in extreme environments, place-making in transitory spaces, human-environment interaction, and participatory action co-design. Michelle earned their MS from MIT in Aeronautics & Astronautics and BS in Applied Mathematics & Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder. | |
| Jacqueline Paul (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga) (she/her) is a Māori PhD student in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning at MIT serving as the Research Assistant of the RCL. She holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand, and an MPhil in Planning, Growth & Regeneration from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Jacqueline is currently a researcher for Pūrangakura Māori Research Centre, an independent specialist for Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, a technical and expert advisor for the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and has been involved with the National Science Challenge – building better homes towns and cities Māori housing research over the past 5 years. With a broad range of expertise in landscape architecture, research, planning, policy, and design, she brings a wealth of knowledge to her work. | |
| Nolen Scruggs is a Master of City Planning Candidate '24 at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning. Before joining the lab, he worked as a political consultant, fundraiser, and organizer for a variety of progressive campaigns, including one to stop a Gas Peaker Power Plant fueled by hydraulic fracking from being built in Queens and another to socialize the NY state energy system. When Nolen is not on the job, he spends lots of time biking and skating around Cambridge, MA. | |
| Jonars Spielberg (he/him) is a PhD student at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning. His work draws on more than a decade of professional and academic experience conducting research across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia on technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the politics and political economy of service provision. Broadly, he examines how the state and citizens work together to co-produce essential public services and how shifts in development thinking have influenced what kinds of technological interventions are legitimized and valorized. Using the Senegal River Valley as a case study, Jonars’ dissertation research investigates how technological interventions mediate everyday interactions between bureaucrats and smallholder farmers and how these interventions-cum-interactions, in turn, shape agricultural management processes and outcomes. Underlying his research is a deep-seated interest in illuminating the conditions under which pressing equity and sustainability challenges can be adequately addressed. Currently, he helps manage DUSP’s Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS). Prior to beginning his doctorate, Jonars was a research associate with MIT's Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE), which MIT D-Lab has led since 2017. At CITE, he conducted research on the adoption of household products among low-income communities in East Africa and South Asia. His more recent and ongoing work with D-Lab | CITE explores Last-Mile Clean Energy Entrepreneurship, Digital Financial Services for Smallholder Farmers, Access to Affordable Bicycles, and Achieving Sustainable Partnerships for Innovation, Research, and Entrepreneurship. Jonars has also been affiliated with MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) and the Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability. During the 2019-2020 academic year, he conducted fieldwork as a Fulbright Fellow in Senegal. Jonars holds a BA in International Relations & Classical Studies from Michigan State University and an MA in International Environmental Policy from Boston University. |
RESEARCH AFFILIATES
Gabriella Carolini (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and International Development in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she leads the City Infrastructure Equity Lab. Her teaching and research center on equity in the governance and planning of infrastructure development across urban communities in the Americas and Africa, particularly in the water and sanitation arena. Her work on urban infrastructure and international development has been published as a book, Equity, Evaluation, and International Cooperation, with Oxford University Press (2022), and her articles can be found in leading journals, including Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies, Journal of the American Planning Association, The Lancet, and the American Journal of Public Health, among others.
Carolina Bastidas is a research scientist at MIT Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Services group. She is a marine scientist with over fifteen years of professional experience in basic and applied research on the ecology of marine hard-bottom communities and human impacts on them. After earning her PhD from James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, Bastidas was appointed to a faculty position at Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, where she spent ten years establishing valuable collaborations between local and international colleagues and focused her work largely on coral reefs and the biology of their marine invertebrates. Bastidas’ portfolio also includes a vast array of teaching and mentoring, proposal writing, leading and managing research projects, and communicating her research results in peer-reviewed journals and through outreach activities.
Prudence Robinson is the Executive Director of the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU). The LCAU focuses on the design and planning of large-scale, complex, metropolitan environments, integrating research on urban design, urbanization, and urban culture. Prior to helping to establish the LCAU, she worked with the Senseable City Lab at MIT as a partner strategist and research fellow; where she worked closely with city administrations and industry members worldwide. Before hopping across the Atlantic, she worked in different capacities with ISEAL Alliance, the Royal Geographical Society, and Global Witness. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Monitoring, Modeling, and Management and a bachelor’s degree in Geography from King’s College London.
Daniela Coray (she/her) is a Research Associate at MIT’s Norman. B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the K-12 Outreach Committee for the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, developing and delivering youth programs in design and landscape architecture. Daniela holds a Master's in Landscape Architecture from the Boston Architectural College and a Master's in Environmental Art from Falmouth University in the UK. She is a former Coordinator and Faculty in Landscape Architecture at the Boston Architectural College, where she taught research, design studio, and technical design courses and helped develop the high school Summer Academy. And is a recipient of the Ada Louise Huxtable Fellowship in Civic Engagement. Her recent research has focused on contested landscapes and a re-configuring of the concept of place in the Latin American and North American urban contexts. She has also developed work on environmental education, youth empowerment, and design as a catalyst for youth engagement. Her research interests include the creation of narrative mechanisms for building equitable resilience, post-migration placelessness, and the social dimensions of climate change.
Jean-Luc Pierite (he/hers) is the International Procurement and Logistics Manager for The Fab Foundation. He is also a complementary Community Manager for fablabs.io. Outside of The Fab Foundation, Jean-Luc currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the North American Indian Center of Boston. He also serves as a Community Linguist on the Advisory Circle for CoLang for the period 2016-20. The Institute on Collaborative Language Research or "CoLang" is designed to provide an opportunity for community language activists and linguists to receive training in community-based language documentation and revitalization. Jean-Luc also contributes to the Tunica Language Project, a collaboration with Tulane University in New Orleans and the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. For Tunica-Biloxi, Jean-Luc serves on the tribal Constitution Committee. Jean-Luc has a B.A. in Humanities with a co-major in Mass Communication and Japanese from Dillard University in New Orleans. He also earned an A.S. in Video Game Design from Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Jean-Luc's previous positions include Internet Marketing Specialist for Mohegan Sun and Graphic Artist for Paragon Casino Resort. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Jean-Luc now resides in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Leslie Jonas (she/her) is a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe; Leslie is an experienced Senior Strategist with a demonstrated history of working in nonprofits, tribal governments, and Sr. level administration and planning. She is skilled in Management, Media and Event planning, Client Relations, Development, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and land conservation, specifically Indigenous land conservation, focusing on cultural respect. Leslie has spent the past 12 years as Co-founder and Vice-chairwoman of the first Native-led land trust east of the Mississippi, the Native Land Conservancy, Inc. (NLC). The NLC is involved with numerous land conservation and preservation projects from Cape Cod and the islands, west to the Blackstone River, and North to the Merrimack. Leslie first became actively engaged in land conservation and the health and wellness of our environment when she worked for the New Alchemy Institute, now called the Green Center, in her hometown of Falmouth on Cape Cod. During the past few years, she has been researching and focusing on Climate Change from the Indigenous Perspective. Currently, this work for the Native Land Conservancy has led her to co-teaching and co-advising environmental courses in social/environmental justice at UMASS Boston and MIT, speaking publicly on Climate Change and producing educational video tools for audiences across many disciplines. Leslie is a leading professional with a BA in Mass Communications and Television Production from Emerson College and an MS in Community Economic Development. She manages Sr. level pre-award, award, and post-award grants for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's WHOI Sea Grant Program in her day-to-day work. In the recent past, Leslie has provided professional development assessment, strategy, and grants education to Indian Tribes and other non-profits, furthering an organization's grant writing capacity to increase revenue and community services. During the summer of 2021, she was invited to sit on the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) Advisory Board for the state of MA. where she helps to advocate for human rights to land and clean water in MA with teams of CLF environmental experts.
Maria Dombrov (she/her) is a Research Associate II at the Climate Impacts Group, co-located at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research in New York City. Maria’s work focuses on understanding the implications that climate change and extreme events present to cities and their metropolitan regions around the world. Maria is the Global Coordinator of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN), a research organization of almost 2,000 scientists, scholars, and expert practitioners located in more than 150 low, middle, and high-income cities. She is also a Principal Editor and Project Manager of UCCRN’s Third Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3.3), which will be published by Cambridge University Press between 2023 - 2024. ARC3.3 is a peer-reviewed, global assessment report series that synthesizes the current state of climate change and cities. ARC3.3 offers new research in areas related to COVID-19, architecture, governance, urban climate science, finance, environmental justice, and more. Maria has an M.A. from Columbia University in Climate and Society with a concentration on scientific communications and a B.S. from Syracuse University in Biology with Focus on Environmental Science and a concentration on molecular plant biology.
Mehtap Leyla Turanalp Uysal (she/her) is a student at Harvard GSD’s MDes program. After graduating from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Turkey with a BA/BS in Urban and Regional Planning focused on restoring nature via permaculture principles, she left her homeland Mesopotamia. She moved to the USA in 2012 to pursue higher education opportunities. Leyla is concerned about our planet’s future due to the extreme impacts of a rapidly changing world. This led her to Harvard, where her studies focus on restoring nature, indigenous knowledge of climate change, and getting cities ready for the upcoming risks of global warming. Outside academia, she is the founder and CEO of Bajer Watches, a passionate entrepreneur, a fashion designer, an activist, and a mother. Leyla started her company Bajer Watches, to create awareness of the Kurdish culture and empower women and children in indigenous Kurdish communities across the globe. When she is not working, she is busy cooking, gardening, reading, exploring music, playing tennis, practicing martial arts, and spending time with her family. Leyla is Kurdish American, speaking Kurdish, Turkish, and English.
FORMER LAB MEMBERS
Nick Allen is a PhD student in the Environmental Policy and Planning group. His research focuses on how fiscal regimes influence urban development and environmental governance. His current projects study: 1) the effects of local government debt on declining property markets and 2) how fiscal incentives shape coastal settlement and resource use. Prior to his PhD, Nick was an economic development professional in Detroit and managed research projects on urban investment patterns in peninsular Malaysia and northern India. He has a B.A. in political economy from Yale and a Master's in City Planning from MIT.
Shekhar Chandra is a PhD candidate in Public Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He holds an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from India’s G.B. Pant University, and two Master’s in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Shekhar is interested in examining environmental policy questions in the context of systematic corruption in government institutions, and justice and environmental sovereignty with a specific focus on Native American communities in the United States experiencing climate change-induced migration.
Elise Harrington is an assistant professor in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy area in the University of Minnesota Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She studies infrastructure, energy, and environmental policy-making with a focus on how interpersonal relationships and social organization influence the design and implementation of policies, programs, and services in response to climate change mitigation and adaptation activities. Elise has a PhD in Environmental Policy and Planning from MIT.
Ipshita Karmakar is a Master of City Planning Candidate '23 at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning and a current Fulbright Scholar from India. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture from KRVIA, Mumbai, India, and has four years of work experience working as an architect, urban designer, and urban planner in South Asia, Africa, South America, and the USA. Across her practice, her interest has been in disaster mitigation, urban resilience, and international development issues. She is particularly interested in using tools of geospatial analysis, urban analytics, and community engagement in resiliency planning.
Osamu Moses Kumasaka is a Master of City Planning candidate interested in community-led planning, environmental justice, and the intersection of climate resilience and housing security. Before coming to MIT, Osamu was a junior associate at the Consensus Building Institute, where he managed collaborative, multi-stakeholder conflict resolution and engagement processes on behalf of nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Osamu is a Somerville Climate Forward Ambassador and volunteers as a mediator for landlord-tenant disputes in the Somerville District Court.
Sarabrent McCoy has a Master's in City Planning from MIT, where she studied climate adaptation governance. Her background is in land change mapping and regional environmental policy research in Louisiana and the NY-NJ-CT metro region. Originally from Baton Rouge, she studied historical geography at Middlebury College.
Anisha Patil Nakagawa is a Master of City Planning Candidate in the Environmental Policy & Planning Group at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies & Planning. Her work focuses on climate justice, with a focus on public health and extreme heat, through participatory action research and human-centered design. She has experience in climate organizing, environmental health literacy, and information design. She has a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Olin College.