Teaching

I believe that one of the most powerful ways for an academic to make a change in the world is through teaching. The training of the next generation of urban professionals is a fundamental task to achieve a sustainable and just urban development. Teaching has been one of the most rewarding activities of my job.

In 2018, I have been awarded a Senior Fellowship of the UK Higher Education Academy for my leadership role in teaching. I was also conferred two UCL Education Awards, on top of a nomination for the UCL Student Choice Awards for Inspiring Teaching Delivery.

My teaching builds on my experience and research, and it also reflects my search for bridges between urban practitioners and academia. My teaching is research-based, making students excited by challenging them with cutting-edge ideas from practice and using teaching as an opportunity to further refine research ideas. Therefore, I plan to always renew the curriculum of my modules informed by my research so that students are able to learn through participating in research and enquire. This requires a diversity of inclusive teaching practices and methods that involve different learning types.

Social Diversity, Inequality and Poverty

This module explores the theoretical debates that link diverse social identities and power relations, and the competing models of equity and justice that attempt to reconcile them. It examines the implications of these debates for social development. The module also deals with different understandings, definitions and ways of measuring poverty and inequality and the implications for development policy and practice.

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising doctoral students on the following topics:

– slum-upgrading or titling processes in informal settlements

– participation in development interventions and/or urban governance

– ethnography of development/humanitarian organisations

– ethnography of development policy and practice

– alter-globalization movements

While I am open in terms of geographical focus, I am now particularly keen to supervise work on urban Sierra Leone, Kenya, Lebanon and Indonesia. I am also happy to discuss any proposal, should you find my work relevant.