51社区黑料

Meg Holden (she/her)

Meg Holden is an urban environmental pragmatist who uses engaged, dialogic and place-based writing, research, teaching and planning and action strategies to contribute to a better shared future.  She is Professor and Director of Resources and Environmental Management as well as Urban Studies and currently directs the School of Resources and Environmental Management at SFU. Her community-engaged research and impact has been recognized by a 2018 51社区黑料President鈥檚 Award for Leadership in Sustainability and in 2022 by an 51社区黑料Community Engaged Research Initiative award for her research partners at the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House. Her writing for public audiences has been recognized by a Willmar Shields Rich Award for excellence in communication (Vital Signs for Metro Vancouver), and by a Canadian Institute of Planners award for Planning Excellence, Planning Publications and Media. Her monograph, Pragmatic Justifications for the Sustainable City: Acting in the common place, is the most comprehensive expression of her approach to research and understanding cities. She is the PI of SUSI and leads Sandbox #3. 

Lyana Patrick (she/her)

Lyana Patrick is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at SFU. Dr. Patrick is a member of the Stellat'en First Nation and Acadian/Scottish. Dr. Patrick鈥檚 work focuses on challenging colonial constructions of community planning as it connects to health and well-being. Specifically, her work on the interconnections between justice and health seeks to promote Indigenous understandings of community building and towards better understanding the factors that hinder or help Indigenous peoples to create community connectedness. She has a keen interest in bringing together researchers working in justice, health, geography, Indigenous Studies, community and environmental studies, to pursue an intersectoral/cross-disciplinary approach to addressing justice and health.

Other areas of interest Dr. Patrick brings to both her research and teaching are promoting institutional change in the decolonization of education; postcolonial educational approaches that are inclusive of cultural diversity in Canada; understanding municipal planning processes and their connection to history, power, culture and Indigenous resistance; Indigenous community planning as place-based practices that are also reflective of diverse Indigenous perspectives; urban Indigenous community planning; participatory planning processes; and creative community engagement. She leads Sandbox 2: Case Studies with Dr. Andi Binet. 

Andi Binet (they/them)

Andi Binet is Assistant Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. Andi is especially interested in understanding how urban environments shape our health and the relationships of care that sustain us, and how social and community planning can be tools for responding to the contemporary crisis of care and achieving health equity. They are currently leading an SSHRC Insight Grant (2025-2029) exploring the role of urban planning in building a universal child care system in B.C., and they are a co-investigator on the SUSI Partnership Development Grant (2026-2029) leading Sandbox #2: Case Studies.

Kelly Clifton (she/her)

Dr. Kelly Clifton is a Professor and the Bombardier Chair of Regional Transportation Planning in the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. Her area of experience is in the interactions between transportation and the built environment, sustainable and active transportation, and understanding the transportation experience and its impact for health, wellbeing, and satisfaction. At UBC, she leads an interdisciplinary research cluster called Rethinking the Right-of-Way (rerow.ubc.ca), which aims to guide the transformation of streets into more equitable, healthful, and sustainable forms. Her role in the SUSI project is to lead Sandbox 1: Data and Tools. She will be working with partners to identify and analyse appropriate data, metrics, and methods needed to build performance measurement and planning capacity for social infrastructure.

Laura Chow (she/her) 

Laura Chow is a Senior Planner with Vancouver Coastal Health Public Health. She works with community partners to bring a public health lens to community and regional plans, inspiring the development of healthier, equitable, sustainable, resilient, and connected communities. Beyond supporting the creation of policies that facilitate healthier communities, Laura collaborates to advance research, practice, and partnerships that address the upstream drivers of health.

Through the Scaling Up Social Infrastructure (SUSI) project, Laura helps bridge public health and planning by advancing tools, evidence, and policy approaches that recognize social infrastructure鈥攕uch as community centres, childcare, parks, and gathering spaces鈥攁s essential to supporting connection, wellbeing, and resilience. Her work focuses on ensuring that as communities grow and change, investments in the built environment also prioritize social connection, equity, and long-term community wellbeing. 

Madeleine Hebert (she/her)

Madeleine is a housing and policy specialist who uses design as a tool to bridge research, engagement, and implementation. As a director at Happy Cities, she combines data-driven analysis with practical design expertise to support informed decision-making and community-centered solutions. She has led the development of design guidelines for social wellbeing and is working to advance research around housing innovation and social infrastructure. Having worked with municipalities across the Lower Mainland and Canada, Madeleine brings a strong understanding of how policy translates into built form. She regularly facilitates complex, often emotionally charged conversations on topics such as supportive housing, aging in place, and emerging housing models. She brings a collaborative, evidence-based approach to co-creating solutions rooted in community needs. Outside of work, Madeleine can be found in her garden or exploring Vancouver Island with her dog Pikku. 

Stefanie Ekeli (she/her) 

Stefanie Ekeli is a Regional Planner at Metro Vancouver Regional District with a focus on social planning and climate resilience. Stefanie鈥檚 work supports the development of equitable, inclusive, and resilient communities through regional policy, research, and collaboration with municipalities and partners.