Ursula Eicker

Founding Co-Director of Next Generation Cities Institute

Professor, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia

Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Cities

Prof. Eicker is a German physicist who received her PhD in Solid State Physics from Heriot-Watt University and her Habilitation in Renewable Energy Systems from the Berlin Technical University. Prof. Eicker has held leadership positions at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences and its Centre for Sustainable Energy Technologies, and has coordinated many international research projects in the fields of building energu efficiency, renewable energy systems and urban scale simulation. 

Carmela Cucuzella

Founding Co-Director of Next-Generation Cities Institute (NGCI)

Professor, Design and Computation Arts

Concordia Research Chair in Integrated Design, Ecology, and Sustainability (IDEAS) for the Built Environment

Carmela Cucuzella's research falls within the broad domain of design studies where she investigates questions of sustainable design for urban living. Her varied background and expertise in environmental and social life cycle analysis, in green building rating systems and in design and architecture, allows her to adopt a framework revolving around design's interrelated dimensions of the cognitive-instrumental, the moral-practical and the aesthetic-expressive forms or concestion and discourse.

Carly Ziter

Assistant Professor, Biology

Dr. Ziter is an urban ecologist and assistant professor in the Biology Department of Concordia University, and a faculty member of Concordia's interdisciplinary cluster for Smart, Sustainable, and Resilient Cities and Communities. She completed an MSC in biology and natural resources sciences at McGill, and a PhD in landscape ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014-2018). As a landscape and ecosystem ecologist, her research asks how landscape structure, land-use history, and biodiversity impact multiple ecosystem services and their relationships in urban and urbanizing landscapes. 

Fatemeh Izadi

PhD student, INDI program

With a background in Architecture and Urban Design, Fatemeh is integrating knowledge from the fields of urban ecology, engineering, and design to understand how build and green elements of cities can better promote urban "walkability", with a particular focus on thermal comfort. Fatemeh joined the CERC Team to pursue the same goals: enhance the well-being of communities, protecting the environment, and investments in future generations. Her research falls within the Next Generation Cities cluster, and her thesis is titled Towards Comfortable, Walkable and Green Streets: Walkability Assessment with the Focus on Street Level Greenery and Thermal Comfort.

Li Lingshan

PhD student, Geography, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment.

Lingshan is studying the effects of vegetation and the built environment on urban microclimate in Montreal, using a combination of remote sensing and field-based approaches. She is most interested in the effect of landscape patterns on the intensity of the ecosystem services (urban heat island mitigation, air quality regulation, etc.) provided by urban greening. Her research contributes to the work of the Next Generation Cities cluster co-supervised by Concordia colleagues and collaborators Ursula Eicker, Carly Ziter and Angela Kross.

Nicole Yu

MSc. Student, Biology

Nicole is studying the effectiveness of green infrastructure in Montreal, as well as habitat connectivity for urban biodiversity. Coming from Hong Kong, a biodiversity-rich but densely-built city, Nicole is interested in integrating nature into urban environments to create more ecologically-sustainable cities. Her work includes science outreach efforts, as well as citizen science methods to engage local communities in her research. She is supervised by Carly Ziter. 

Chloe Cull

MSc Student, Biology

Chloe is a new student interested in the balance between ecosystem services to humans and biodiversity in urban greenspaces. Her research will attempt to determine the effects of human disturbance (quantified by trail density and trail use) in urban greenspaces on breeding bird fecundity and species richness. She is co-supervised by Carly Ziter and Barbara Frei (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Chloe is passionate about the natural world around her and hopes that her work will contribute to greenspace conservation and sustainability in the city of Montreal.