Visiting Scholars
Application Process
The City Institute is able to accommodate a limited number of visiting scholars each year. The Institute encourages applications from faculty members, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from other institutions.
Normally, we can provide visitors with a shared workspace, Internet access, an email account and a York University library card. There is no monetary funding available for visiting scholar appointments.
If you are interested in applying to becoming a Visiting Scholar with the City Institute, please complete and send the application form along with a current copy of your curriculum vitae to city@yorku.ca.
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Institute for Urban Design and Spatial Planning, University Innsbruck, Austria
Wolfgang Andexlinger is an Assistant-Professor at the Institute for Urban Planning and Spatial Design at the University Innsbruck, Austria. His main research focus is based on areas where urban systems collide with rural elements. He wrote his doctoral thesis about the superimposition of rural and urban elements and its spatial impact in tourist alpine regions in Austria. His current research is focused on action and planning strategies for those ‘rurbanised’ areas. He wants to compare large urban areas such as Toronto with the tourist focused areas in the Alps. The aim is to identify comparable and non-comparable elements to develop strategies for a sustainable and liveable future.
Wolfgang Andexlinger was at the City Institute from August to December 2011.
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Department of Social Sciences, UAM-Cuajimalpa
Miriam has a PhD in Social Sciences from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Campus Santa Fe, Mexico City. Her research looks at governance, environmental risk, environmental movements and democracy in North America. She is a Research Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, UAM-Cuajimalpa and is a “National Research” Level II within the National System of Researchers in Mexico. She is a member of the Mexican Association of Canadian Studies, and is on the editorial board for the Journal of Canadian Studies, and El Cotidiano Journal. Miriam will be at CITY from August to October 2010.
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Technische Universität Berlin
Marcela is an urban anthropologist, associate fellow at the DFG International Graduate Research Program Berlin-New York- Toronto
at the Technische Universität Berlin. She holds a holds Master in historical urban studies with a focus on environmental history at the Center for Metropolitan Studies TU Berlin. She is interested in the sustainable development of cities an regards the cultural behavior, the discourses of the local inhabitants and their knowledge as inputs for city planning and resource management. The relation between culture and nature, between human beings and their environment have a central position in her research work. Marcela has been involved with anthropological and ethnographic research for the Columbia Coffee Growers Association, National University of Columbia’s “Group 15″, and with the Anthropology department of the National University of Columbia in Bogotá. She will be at CITY from May to June 2013.
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Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin.
Sabine is a fellow and PhD candidate in the International Graduate Research Program Berlin – New York – Toronto at the Center for Metropolitan Studies at TU Berlin. She studied sociology and political science at Dresden University of Technology and The New School for Social Research in New York. In her MA thesis on post-Socialist urban development in Dresden she investigated the transition process from modern to post-modern modes in the production of inner-city spaces. Her research interests range from urban sociology, urban environmental governance and political ecology to critical and Marxist geography and critical IPE. Currently, she is working on her dissertation project and conducts research on international city organizations and their role as networks for knowledge and policy transfer in global environmental governance and their influence on the production of urban political ecologies. Sabine will be at the CITY Institute from September to December 2012
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Department of Human Geography, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany
Bernd’s research interests include urban and political geography and critical criminology. His main fields of research in recent years have been urban policing, crime mapping, basic notions of historical-geographical materialism, and the recent history of radical and critical geography in Germany. During his stay at York he is conducting research on the way in which policing is organized in different municipalities in the Toronto region as part of a larger project that looks into the complicated relationships between core city and more peripheral parts of the global city regions Frankfurt and Toronto. Bernd is at the City Institute from June to July 2012.
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Prof. Robin Bloch
Centre for International Development and Training, University of Wolverhampton
Professor Bloch is an urban and regional planner with professional experience in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He specialises in urban, metropolitan and regional planning; local and regional economic development; and environmental management. His work has included the entire project cycle, from project identification and formulation through implementation, quality assurance, and monitoring and evaluation of individual projects and programmes. Prof. Bloch was at York University in November 2009.
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Junior Fellow
Masters Candidate, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Rosalia’s research looks to the role and influence of transportation systems in the construction of urban spaces. Using Mexico City as a case of study, the research explores the types of mobility that have been produced in this specific urban process. Drawing attention to the different neoliberal policies applied to the current transportation system, observing what kind of projects are promoted in the mobility of the city and who are the main actors and activities behind this urban construction.
Rosalia was at the City Institute from February 2007 to January 2008.
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Department of Geosciences/Geography, Institute of Human Geography, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Dr. Susanne Heeg is professor in urban geography at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. Her current research explores the globalization of the real estate industry in Canada and Germany in comparison. In Toronto, she conducted interviews with different real estate actors about their spatial strategies. This work is based on previous research on the interrelationship of the real estate industry and urban planning in respect to a large scale redevelopment project in Boston. Susanne Heeg was at the City Institute for the summer 2010, and in June of 2012.
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Junior Research Fellow PhD Candidate, Center for Urbanization, Culture and Society
National Institute for Scientific Research (Montreal)
Marilena is a PhD student in urban studies att he Center for Urbanization, Culture and Society at the National Institute for Scientific Research in Montreal. Her doctoral work is being carried out under the supervision of Dr. Julie-Anne Boudreau. Marilena is interested in urban governance and, in particular, the municipal policy response to international migration. Using Toronto as a case study, the research explores the construction of the image of social harmony and the treatment of difference as diversity by looking at city marketing strategies employed by the City of Toronto.
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Christoph Matthias
Masters Candidate, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Christoph is interested in questions of urban governance and planning, in particular, the forms of (public) service delivery and the governance of infrastructure. His bachelor thesis looked into the management of a Frankfurt-based public-private partnership as an example of new forms of service delivery in an entrepreneurial city. His current interest is revolving around transformation of service delivery and infrastructure management.
Christoph was at the City Institute from September to December 2011/February2012.
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Christian Mettke
PhD Student, Graduate Program ‘Topology of Technology’ – Institute IWAR
Darmstadt University of Technology
Christian Mettke holds a degree in Geography and Political Science from the Free University of Berlin. His main research interest lies in urban development and the transformation of urban infrastructures. Christian completed his diploma thesis on “Resource efficiency in China’s urban transportation system”. He is currently a doctoral student at the Institute for spatial and infrastructure planning at Darmstadt University of Technology (Germany). In his dissertation project he is conducting a comparative study on the transformation of the public transit systems in Toronto and Frankfurt (Germany). The key issue in this study, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), is the changing institutional and political context of public transit provision and the accessibility to public transit in suburban spaces. Christian was at City Institute from June to December 2011.
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Lara-Maria Mohr
Masters Candidate, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany.
Lara is graduate student from Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany. Lara earned her bachelors degree in cultural anthropology and has since changed to human geography for her masters degree because of her interest in urban studies. Lara’s bachelors thesis explored the possibilites of converting offices to residential use in Frankfurt, but is also interested in environmental planning. Lara hopes to learn more about this topic in particular during her time at the City Institute
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Dr. Jochen Monstadt
Chair for Spatial and Infrastructure Planning
Institute IWAR
Darmstadt University of Technology
Jochen Monstadt is professor for spatial and infrastructure planning at Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. His research interests are at the interface between urban/regional studies and social studies of technology. He has conducted and coordinated extensive comparative research on the urban transition of energy, water and wastewater systems, on the co-evolution of cities and infrastructures and on infrastructure planning and urban governance in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, the United States and Vietnam. His research at the City Institute explores the transition of urban infrastructures in Toronto and L.A. and its impact on urban environmental governance and planning.
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Prof. Jan Nijman
Department of Geography, University of Miami
Prof. Nijman is a comparative urbanist and political geographer. His research and teaching interests include: urban and regional development; comparative urbanism; globalization; world cities; geopolitics. He has regional interests in Metropolitan Miami and Greater Mumbai. Prof. Nijman has completed extensive field work experience in urban India. Prof. Nijman was at York University in March 2008.
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Junior Research Fellow
PhD Student, Centre for European Political Sociology, Strasbourg University (France)
Clémence’s doctoral work looks to the ‘uses of Europe’ (understood as a reservoir of financial, material, cognitive, strategic resources) by national and local actors in the diffusion in Turkey of new frames and tools of urban public action – and more precisely participatory mechanisms. Using the Urban Regeneration Policy of Istanbul as a case study, the research intends to question the respective roles of national heritages (institutions and political culture), external pressures or influences (from the EU and other international organizations like the World Bank, but also from the alter-globalist movement) and actors’ strategies and interests in the greater demand for citizens’ participation to the formulation and the implementation of local projects of urban regeneration. The aim of her work is finally to examine the impact of theses processes on the political order, characteristics of public action and claims of collection actions on the themes of ‘metropolitan citizenship’ and ‘local democracy’ in Istanbul. She was at the City Institute from September 2009 to December 2009.
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Tino Petzold
Junior Research Fellow
Masters Candidate, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Tino is generally interested in Marxist theories of law in relation to concepts of space. His bachelor thesis dealt with the role of law in the expulsion of the homeless from public spaces in Frankfurt am Main during the 1990s. His current research draws attention to the rescaling of law to supranational forms. Examples are the implementation of a European legal form in the course of the project of a European Union and recent attempts to establish a global legal form in order to govern climate change. Tino was at the City Institute from July to October 2010.
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PhD Student, Graduate Program ‘Formations of the Global’, University of Mannheim, Germany
Melanie Pooch holds a degree in English Language and Literature as well as Business Administration from the University of Mannheim. Her main research interest lies in American literature and culture. She studied abroad on scholarship at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, USA. She completed her diploma thesis on the development from post-colonial hybridity to global transculturality in North American minority literature. She is currently a doctoral student and scholarship recipient of the graduate program ‘Formations of the Global’, investigating processes of cultural globalization from literary perspectives. In the doctoral program, she is concentrating on the global cities of Los Angeles, New York as well as Toronto and their function as (trans)cultural nodal points. Her primary focus is the description of the transcultural urban novel in a globalizing world. Melanie was at the City Institute from March 5 – May 7, 2011.
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PhD Candidate, Department of Human Geography, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Using the city of Frankfurt am Main as a case study, Sebastian analyses in his doctoral work the neoliberalization process of urban politics from the 1960s until now with special focus on the impact of the current economic crisis. On a theoretical level he asks in what way insights from materialist theory (Regulation approach, state theory) and from poststructuralist ways of thinking (especially Governmentality studies) could be combined for a better understanding of local transformation processes. Generally he is interested in Critical Theory and Geography, Urban studies, Political Geography as well as Tel Aviv. Sebastian was with CITY from October 2010 to March 2011.
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Masters Candidate, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Marisa is a Graduate Student from Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany where she studies human geography. Even though her focus there is on economic geography she is very interested in urban planning, especially participatory processes in planning and planning policies. Marisa will be at CITY from from November 2012 until May 2013.
Juliette SegardPhD Candidate, Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. Juliette Segard is a PhD student in Geography at University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. Her doctoral work focuses on governance and local political structure in the suburbs of Hanoi, and especially in craft villages. She also studies the impact of territorial administrative reforms on the Red River Delta region, and on State-society relations. Juliette was at the City Institute from November 2011 to February 2012.
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Pedagogical University Berne, Switzerland
Human Rights and Research Institute IPC, Medellín, Colombia
Dr. Angela Stienen has a PhD in Social Anthropology from Berne University, Switzerland. Her work has included extensive field research in Colombia on globalisation, urban politics and conflict transformation. In Switzerland she has researched migration, urban development, cultural politics and education. Recently, she co-directed a research project in the programme, Religion, State, and Society of the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is professor in Sociology at the Pedagogical University Berne and associate researcher at the Human Rights and Research Institute IPC in Medellín, Colombia. Angela Stienen was at the CITY Institute at York University during her sabbatical from January 2011 to January 2012.
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Junior Fellow
PhD Candidate, Lund University, Institute of Communication
Jakob’s research is tied to a participatory democratic project within the Municipality of Helsingborg, southern Sweden. His specific focus revolves around civic identities. In studying different activities organized by the municipality, the focus is on how people construct themselves and others as citizens through language. Which identities become more relevant than others, in what way and why? Preliminary findings suggest that an emphasis on the future, active and unselfish engagement makes participation relevant, especially if you are a middle-aged parent with a strong sense of local identity.
Jakob was at York University for the Fall semester of 2007.
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Junior Fellow
PhD Student, School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia
James is a student of planning and urban design from the United Kingdom, he is currently undertaking research for his PhD in Planning at UBC. James is interested in urban design policy and process and the role design plays in the masterplanning of large-scale mega-project developments. Large-scale projects, and their subsequent design, can have a dramatic impact on the shape of cities, particularly in the contemporary city where significant tracts of land became available for development since the post-industrial turn. James is researching the interactions and dynamics between city governments and large-scale developers/development corporations. His case study focus is on the projects of Toronto’s waterfront, including Concord Pacific and Waterfront Toronto.
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Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Prof. Whitehead’s research and teaching focuses on environmental and political geography with a particular concern with the emergence of green and sustainable cities. Prof. Whitehead is a committee member of the Royal Geographical Society’s Political Geography Research Group and is on the editorial board of the journal of Social and Cultural Geography. Prof. Whitehead was at York University in September 2007.
