Urban and Regional Research Program

Professor Nicky Morrison
Director of Urban and Regional Program
Professor of Planning, School of Social Sciences

Areas of Research Interest
Urban planning (theory and practice); urban governance; housing and sustainable communities; participatory planning practices.

Google Scholar:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IByiurwAAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Kevin Dunn
Pro Vice Chancellor Research

Areas of Research Interest
Geographies of racism immigration and settlement; anti-racism and multiculturalism; Islam in Australia, and, local government and multiculturalism

Google Scholar:  https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=iyyns0AAAAAJ

Professor Andrew Gorman-Murray
Professor of Geography

Areas of Research Interest

Andrew Gorman-Murray is a social, cultural and political geographer. He is named as Australia's leading researcher in Gender Studies in The Australian's Top 250 Researchers 2021. His research agenda is geographies of justice, encompassing the following areas: (1) gender, sexuality and space; (2) geographies of homes and households; (3) the evolving home/work interface; (4) wellbeing and place; and (5) visual art and geography. His international editorial roles include Sustainability, Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, Writing from Below and Revista Latinoamericana de Geografia e Gênero.
Google Scholar:   https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=HgVckQ4AAAAJ&hl=en

Professor Phillip O'Neill
Professor of Economic Geography

Areas of Research Interest
Economic geography; urban and regional development; infrastructure financing; logistics urbanism; economic change and jobs in Western Sydney.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=jr68hWQAAAAJ&hl=en

Associate Professor Rae Dufty-Jones
Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Western Sydney
Associate Professor of Geography, Tourism and Planning

Areas of Research Interest
Mobility (including: labour, housing, rural youth migration), neoliberalism (including: housing policy, governmentality, regional development, rural restructuring), housing (including: mobility, rural, policy, ethnic discrimination in the private rental market), rural (including: rural restructuring, ethnic communities in regional Australia, regional development policy).

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=XfBhEK0AAAAJ

Associate Professor Awais Piracha
Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

Areas of Research Interest
Planning policy and practice, Planning Support Systems, Ecologically sustainable planning.

Dr Jenna Condie
Lecturer of Digital Research & Online Social Analysis
School of Social Sciences

Areas of Research Interest
Jenna is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Research and Online Social Analysis at Western Sydney University. With psychology as a base, she traverses a range of disciplines, residing in the Anthropology and Sociology workgroup and the Urban Research Program, while teaching cyberpsychology and digital research methods across the Psychology and Social Sciences disciplines. Jenna co-leads the Travel in the Digital Age (TinDA) project, which examines the intersections of travel/transport, technology and mobile lives.

Dr Alanna Kamp
Lecturer of Geography and Urban Studies

Areas of Research Interest
Alanna’s research and teaching contributions lie in the areas of Australian cultural and social diversity, experiences of migrant settlement, racism and anti-racism, identity politics, and intersectional experiences of belonging/exclusion. Her research utilises national-level quantitative methods as well as smaller-scale qualitative techniques that are influenced by multi-disciplinary research (post-colonialism, feminism, history, diaspora etc). Alanna is a lead academic member of the Challenging Racism Project. She has published pioneering and award-winning work on Chinese Australian women’s experiences of identity, racism and belonging. She has also published in the areas of Indigenous Studies, Asian Australian Studies, and Islamophobia

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=WmoWTh8AAAAJ&hl=en

Dr Cameron McAuliffe
Senior Lecturer of Human Geography and Urban Studies

Areas of Research Interest
Cameron’s research draws on interdisciplinary approaches to better understand and account for wicked problems in the twenty-first century city. His interests extend across urban geography and urban planning with a focus on contest and inclusion in cities. From research on the governance of graffiti and street art to community participation and engagement in planning and development, Cameron mobilises and applies political, moral and social theory in the pursuit of more ethical urbanisms. His research currently coheres around two main themes – the urban politics of value, and the digital pedagogies of immersive learning.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X-q3UZgAAAAJ&hl=en

Dr Sebastian Pfautsch
Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Management

Areas of Research Interest
Dr Sebastian Pfautsch is an Associate Professor in Urban Studies and the WSU Research Theme Coordinator. In these roles, he develops trans-disciplinary research around the complex issue of urban heat. While the core of his work is concerned with the cooling functions delivered by green infrastructure (GI), his applied projects deal with heat mitigation far beyond GI and include surface and building materials, engineered shade and water infrastructure, smart city technology and more. His high-quality research output is documented in the form of more than 90 peer-reviewed research papers, technical reports and journal articles. Sebastian's work features regularly in the media, which in 2021 led to more than 350 headlines in 21 countries, published in 5 languages and reached more than 1 billion people.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=Iw8sJY4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Dr Felicity Picken
Lecturer of Heritage and Tourism
School of Social Sciences

Areas of Research Interest
Geography, Tourism and Urban Planning

Associate Professor Emma Power
Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Studies

Areas of Research Interest
My Cities of Care research program asks how cities can equitably support the capacity of people to meet their needs through studies of housing systems and governance, urban planning and cultures of home. I am motivated by an interest in what makes cities liveable and am driven by concerns about the implications of growing urban and housing inequality, the residualisation of social welfare systems and urban liveability in changing climates. I live and work in Sydney’s western suburbs and Blue Mountains. These are places with lived experience of social difference, facing growing urban and economic development pressures, growing housing affordability challenges and the escalating impacts of climate change including urban heat and bushfire. Living here informs the work I do. I am an urban cultural geographer in the Institute for Culture and Society and School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University.

Dr Rhonda Itaoui
Lecturer of Geography and Urban Studies

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=n9l6eA4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

WSU Affiliated Members

Dr Louise Crabtree
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Culture and Society

Areas of Research Interest
Louise's research focuses on the social, ecological and economic sustainability of community-driven housing developments in Australia; on the uptake of housing innovation in practice and policy; on complex adaptive systems theory in urban contexts; and, on the interfaces between sustainability, property rights, institutional design and democracy. Her work is underpinning the emergence of forms of permanently affordable and community-led housing in Australia, such as housing cooperatives and community land trusts, on which she is Australia's leading expert

Dr Neil Perry
School of Business

Areas of Research Interest
Ecological Economics; Environmental and Natural Resource Economics; Political Economy; Post keynesian Environmental Economics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability; Economics, Finance and Property

Dr Hayley Saul
Senior Lecturer in Heritage and Tourism
School of Social Sciences

Areas of Research Interest
Hayley Saul is the Director of the Himalayan Exploration and Archaeological Research Team (H.E.A.R.T). Her research explores the heritage and archaeology of the Himalayas and Inner Asia region, and the interface of these disciplines with development agendas. Hayley has led teams of archaeologists and surveyors on a series of expeditions to document archaeological remains in the Himalayas, particularly focused on recording prehistoric sites.

Dr Zulfan Tadjoeddin
Director of Academic Programs: Humanitarian & Development Studies
School of Social Sciences

Areas of Research Interest
Political economy of conflict, peace and development; employment and human development in developing countries.

Adjunct Members

Professor Robyn Bushell
Adjunct Professor
Retired Professor in Heritage and Tourism WSU

Areas of Research Interest
Prof Bushell teaches, researches and supervises PhD students in tourism planning, community development, quality of life and the conservation of cultural and natural heritage. Her work focuses on the values underpinning quality of life, wellness and sustainable development.

Associate Professor Michael Darcy
Adjunct Professor
Retired Professor WSU

Areas of Research Interest
Homelessness, housing and social policy, social housing management, public housing communities, participatory research, discourse analysis.

Dr Tim Williams
Adjunct Professor
Australasia Cities Leader, ARUP

Areas of Research Interest
Tim is the Cities Leader for Arup Australasia. He chairs Open Cities which promotes innovation in Australia in next-generation infrastructure . Before coming here in late 2010, he was recognised as one of the UK’s thought-leaders in urban regeneration and economic development for my role in developing East London (north and south of the Thames) as CEO of the Thames Gateway London Partnership - a key local government-led think-tank and advocate. Tim had also been a founding associate member of Blair's Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.

Professor Donald McNeill
Professor, ARC Future Fellow
Institute for Culture and Society

Areas of Research Interest
Professor of Urban and Cultural Geography. His work is located at the intersection of human geography, economic sociology, spatial planning, and urban design and architecture, with a particular interest in the political and cultural economy of globalisation and cities.

Mr Martin Bass
Adjunct Fellow

Martin has had 20 years experience in community engagement and strategic planning in local and State government. In recent years he has worked extensively with councils in metropolitan, regional and rural-remote areas of Australia, providing guidance and assistance in strategic planning community engagement and organisational capacity-building.

Along with his work in the local government sector, Martin has worked with State government agencies such as the NSW Roads and Maritime Services, Transport for NSW, the Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust and the NSW Botanic Gardens Trust.  His work with these agencies has involved the development of community engagement manuals for staff, management of community and intergovernmental engagement initiatives, staff training in community engagement, team building and large and small group facilitation.

Dr Cristina Martinez-Fernandez
Adjunct Fellow

Dr Martinez policy research focuses on shrinking cities and skills development for inclusive growth. She specializes in employment development from new sources of growth and innovation in the green economy (greening jobs and skills towards low-carbon activities and decarbonization), and from the emerging markets linked with demographic change (older workers, older customers, health services for the elderly).

Dr Dallas Rogers
Senior Lecturer, Associate Dean Student Life
The University of Sydney

Areas of Research Interest
Previous lecturer at Western Sydney University, Dr Rogers is a human geographer and his work focuses on the cultures of housing and urban governance. He is an editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy and a convener of the Institute of Australian Geographers Urban Studies Group. He served as the Program Director of the Master of Urbanism and currently the Associate Dean of Student Life in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. Dr Rogers has contributed over 50 opinion pieces and podcasts on cities to outlets such as The Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, and The Conversation. He is the founder of City Road Podcast.

Dr Laura Schatz
Adjunct Fellow

Areas of Research Interest
Urban governance in shrinking cities; planning legislation reform; comparative planning and environmental regulation; and planning policy in resource (particularly mining) communities.