Prospective supervisors

Students applying to the PhD program in Planning must identify and contact a potential supervisor
before submitting their application.  The  faculty members listed below are just a few of the
prospective supervisors available in the department.  To find out about the research interests of
other faculty members, please go to the faculty listing at:

http://www.geog.utoronto.ca/people/faculty

Alana Boland

I welcome inquiries from students interested in environment and development, especially
those wishing to focus on China. In terms of approach, my research on the environment spans
the boundaries of political ecology, urban and political geography, and critical development studies.

Ken Macdonald

I have ongoing research projects in a number of areas and would welcome inquiries from students
with similar interests and backgrounds in critical cultural geography and planning.  Most of my work
in the past few years has focused on the postcolonial politics of development, particularly in northern
Pakistan and India.  This work has examined biodiversity conservation, heritage, and tourism
interventions in order to identify and question the cultural and institutional politics of ‘development’.
I also have ongoing projects in the social construction of vulnerability; the organizational and
institutional politics of biodiversity conservation policy and practice; and transnational geographies
of consumption (with a specific focus on food). I am particularly interested in inquiries from students
interested in studying the politics of conservation knowledge with a particular focus on the
Convention on Biological Diversity.  I also welcome inquiries from students with an interest in
ethnography as geographic method.

Virginia Maclaren

My current research focus is on waste management and I particularly welcome student interest in that
area. Most of my research on waste management in the past few years has been in Southeast Asia,
but I am now also working on two research projects in Canada: NIMBYism and landfills, and
extended producer responsibility. As a member of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council for the past four years,
I have developed an interest in greenbelt planning and would be willing to supervise students in that
area. Finally, I have a broader interest in environmental assessment and sustainability indicators and
welcome inquiries on those topics.

Katharine Rankin

I arrived at my present home in Geography and Planning at U of T through interdisciplinary engagements
in feminist anthropology, critical development studies, planning theory and community development,
as well as practice in the US community reinvestment movement and the gender and development
sector in Nepal. I am currently undertaking research in the areas of commercial gentrification,
neighborhood-based economic development, and post-conflict transition/Nepal, and would welcome
inquiries from students with interests in the areas of diverse economies, the politics of
development/planning and neoliberalism as a contested process, as well as from those who want to
work at the intersection of economic and cultural geography.

Matti Siemiatycki

My current research focuses on the planning, financing and delivery of large transportation infrastructure
projects such as new transit lines, roads, bridges, highways and airports. I welcome applications from
prospective Master’s and PhD students interested in the following general areas of transportation
infrastructure planning: 1) understanding the patterns, causes and cures for cost overruns in different
types of transportation projects; 2) the geography of where new infrastructure projects are being built
around the world; 3) the different ways that public infrastructure projects are financed, including
public-private partnerships, bond financing, and land value capture; 4) the social, environmental,
financial and political implications of building transportation facilities in cities and their surrounding regions.

Sarah Wakefield

My current research centres on community mobilization in relation to food issues, particularly
the rise of food localism and community food security agendas within non-governmental
organizations and municipal governments. I welcome inquiries from students who share my
interests. Inquiries from students with broader interests in community-based research methods,
community development, and/or critical geography would be particularly welcome.