PEOPLE

Professor, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering
Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Cities

“Next-gen cities are built with a life-cycle approach, where resource use follows circular economy principles, where all energy is produced by renewables and where urban dwellers meet and create culture.”

Built and Natural Environments
Associate Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment

“A next-gen city is a city that cares and nurtures. A next-gen city mobilizes its ingenuity, collaborative skills and willpower to create nurturing buildings, infrastructures and public places and spaces that are also spaces of citizenship.”

Built and Natural Environments
Assistant Professor, Finance

“Next-generation cities will have smart buildings and infrastructure measuring environmental and social footprints; and develop communities being aware of environmental and social impacts. Lowering carbon emissions and climate impacts continuously, healthy buildings, and inclusive societies are some examples of the priorities of the next-generation cities.”

Design, Arts, Culture and Community
Associate Professor, Department of Music

“Thriving cities and towns of the future must stimulate arts and culture to build community, engage diverse constituencies and motivate us to act more sustainably — environmentally, socially and economically.”

Design, Arts, Culture and Community
Associate Professor, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment

“The city is the realm of strangers. I want to contribute to creating spaces where strangers — even people with profound differences — see themselves in the eyes of the others and thrive.”

Mobile, Secure and Sharing Cities
Associate Professor and Chair, Centre for Engineering in Society

“Transformative pathways that will address systemic lock-ins and barriers are the way forward to achieve the goal of sustainable, equitable and resilient next-generation cities.”

Mobile, Secure and Sharing Cities
Professor, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE)

“Next-generation cities pursue a citizen-focused approach which leverages smart, integrated, and optimized services enabled by innovative technologies to improve citizens' welfare and foster economic growth.”

Research Innovation and Business Development

"The ability to innovate decides our future, and innovative capability starts in the mind - with our attitude. Next-generation cities need catalysts and decision-makers who are equipped with an open ear, a playful mind, critical thinking skills, curiosity, and the ability to master complex challenges in a collaborative way. With the Next-Generation Cities Institute, we created a space where persons of all ages and backgrounds can co-create the future."

Knowledge, Mobilisation Advisor

"As a designer, I recognize the need to rethink public spaces and look at them from the unique perspective of their users. Understanding different behaviours and lifestyles will allow us to create accessible, inclusive and pleasant multi-generational next-generation urban experiences."

Senior Advisor, Urban Simulation Platform & Gamification

"By visualizing Next Generation Cities and allowing you to play with them in real-time, we expand the reach of our research: empowering smarter decisions and educating greener behaviours."

Research Associate, Project Manager

"I have always worked on projects that made a difference to the planet. Joining the Institute helps me join my two passions: helping to develop innovative solutions to tackle climate change and the biodiversity decline and being able to train new generations on the best ways to face the upcoming emergency."

Lead, Zero Carbon Communities, Next-Generation Cities Institute and part of the UNIVER/CITY 2030 initiative

"Joining the Institute's team is an excellent opportunity for me to help bring all the knowledge I have acquired in the private and social sectors in Spain to Montréal. By bringing all our research ideas into real-world practical cases, we can show that next-generation cities can be a reality. However, it is key to address all these solutions using bottom-up approaches involving social stakeholders."

Strategic advisor for the Climate Colab and part of the UNIVER/CITY 2030 initiative

"In my mind's eye, Next-Generation cities will exist well within the Earth's carrying capacity, and they will be examples, drivers and test beds for fair and sustainable innovations. All of its citizens and organizations will benefit from healthy, green, inclusive and safe built and natural infrastructures. They will be able to collaboratively design their city in open and equitable processes and coexist harmoniously within healthy and clean natural ecosystems."

Senior Strategic Advisor for the inter-university Data Studio initiative of the UNIVER/CITY 2030 program

"In the context of the climate emergency and socio-ecological transition, new collaborative models are necessary to facilitate the sharing and application of data and knowledge across institutions and sectors in the public interest. Anchored communities most impacted by this complex and accelerating crisis, I’m excited to bring to life this ambitious vision of an inter-university Data Studio with my years of local and international experience at the intersection of data, technology, and democracy.”