Our program is empowered by a welcoming and diverse community of students with a uniquely global perspective. Together we are making things right for our communities and our future.
Extractive Industries’ Multifaceted Social and Environmental Implications on Indigenous Communities
Fatima Zahra
Equitable Transit and Suburban Planning: Spatial Justice, Sustainability, Accessibility
Jane Blake
Settler colonialism, Invasive species, Indigenous methodologies, Land relations, land management
John-James Stranz
Environmental Regulation, Community Engagement, and Resource Management Policy
Julian Blamires
Societal Transformation Through Degrowth Policy
Leon Gritsyuk
Participatory Research in Environmental Documentaries
Malsi Angekumbura
Community Energy Planning, Just Transition Sustainable Development, Environmental Education
Supervisor: Mark Winfield
Manuela Perez Guzman
Marine Conservation, Sustainable Tourism, Community Empowerment, Climate Justice
Michael Axiak
Public Transportation & Social Sustainability
Micheal Bradley
Environmental engagement, arts advocacy, brand character marketing, picture books, banana fish
Supervisor: Andil Gosine
Neha Basnet
Participatory water governance through intersectionality lens
Philip Piluris
Ancient Sustainability in Modern Planning: Rediscovering systems used by ancient Mediterranean cultures, and repurposing them to improve modern sustainability
Rohan Jain
The Environment as an Unwritten Constitutional Principle: Benefits of an Arctic Approach and Outcomes Supervisor: Mark Winfield
Sabrina Rose Capista
Mycoremediation, Community Engagement, Spiritual Ecology, Mycelium, Land Restoration
Teanna Zwicker
Imagining Multispecies Justice: Colonial Realism and The Anthropocene
Aitak is a contemporary artist who utilizes clay bodies and installations to depict intricate political and social narratives drawn from personal and collective stories. Academically, she is interested in the intersection of public art and political expression, and in exploring the connection between freedom of expression and the arts in the public realm. Additionally, she values leading community art initiatives, connecting them to social studies and advocacy within her academic and artistic practice.
Decolonizing the Future: Climate Struggles and Resistance in the Era of the Anthropocene
My research interests lie at the intersections between coloniality, modernity and nature, with a focus on critical approaches to development, the Anthropocene and decolonial futures. In the PhD, I am working on the concept of “colonization of the future” in relation to the climate crisis. I am a research associate at the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Languages (CIKL) in the project “Indigenous Climate Leadership and Self-Determined Futures” and a collaborator of Indigenous Climate Action.
Popular Education and Conjunctural Analysis: Lessons from the Counter-Archive
I have been practicing popular education in Canada and abroad since 1978. My research focuses on popular education in the name (i.e., linked to Freirian history) and in principle (i.e., as practiced in diverse social movements for whom the term popular education is incidental if used at all).
Supervisor: Leesa Fawcett
Clara Gomez Garcia
Inhabiting care: how housing production and arrangements shape and disrupt women’s care practices in Colombia.
Professional in Urban Management and Development, holding a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Development Studies. I possess experience in research and consulting and as a Teaching Assistant. I have also been engaged in the international cooperation sector, specializing in project management for social development. My research interests encompass housing accessibility, residential trajectories, urban informality, feminist urbanism, and institutional analysis.
Supervisor: Luisa Sotomayor
Giuliana Racco
Potentialities and Problematics of Participatory, Socially Engaged Art in relation to Borders
Supervisor: Andil Gosine
Hillary Birch
More than Access: The urban governance of water quality in Lusaka, Zambia
Hillary Birch is a PhD student in Environmental Studies where she studies how projects of global health intersect with processes of urbanization that shape flows of water in a city and change its quality, focusing on a case study of Lusaka, Zambia. At York, Hillary is a Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholar in Planetary Health, and she holds an SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. She has master’s degrees in urban governance from Sciences Po, Paris, and in political science from McGill University.
My project analyzes the politics and discourses surrounding the TMX as a network of the fantasies of Canadian settler colonialism and fossil capitalism. I examine the settler origin myths, scapegoats, conspiracies, and climate disavowal, and denialism that serve to conceal socio-ecological antagonisms and foster consent for extractivism in Canada.
Supervisor: Ilan Kapoor
Read more on the scholar’s research:
Sights of Contestation Part I: Unconscious
How Indigenous philosophy and practice may transform the way we make and view movies
Moore is Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk), a fluent Kanyen’kè:ha speaker (ACTFL intermediate/high), and an enrolled member of Six Nations of the Grand River territory. She is an independent filmmaker, podcaster, and educator. Moore is also a founding member/co-owner of The Aunties Dandelion: a media-arts collective informed by traditional Onkwehòn:we (Indigenous) teachings and focused on revitalizing communities through stories of land, language, and relationships.
Supervisor: Cate Sandilands
Karl Petschke
Wayside Ecologies: Mobilities, Margins, and Landscapes in Historic Transportation Corridors
Karl writes on themes of mobility, media, infrastructure, and landscape. His work on wayside ecologies explores environmental history and political ecology along the margins of historic transportation corridors. Using archival and fieldwork methods to investigate road and rail verges both past and present, his research seeks to uncover alternate lines of connectivity and continuity in regional landscapes.
Knowledge Mobilization: From Knowledge to Action in International Development
My research aims at exploring options for knowledge mobilization (KMb) practice and build the capacity to engage in it more effectively at the community level in Latin America. I propose to include the exciting developments in the field to support co-production models in the service of social justice. My research also incorporates and analyzes a lifetime of professional practice in newcomer and health services delivery to develop a robust contribution to the field of KMb.
Laura has a Master’s degree in Environmental Policy and is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, where her research engages with an environmental justice framework and considers the viability of consent-based mechanisms for more just approaches to impact assessments.
I am interested in how animals can be understood as subjects and teachers as opposed to mere learning tools for human pursuits, which is how they are often seen. Departing from my decade of experience working in animal shelters, my research explores how rabbits and humans can learn-teach together in this setting. I use common worlding and decolonial theory as my theoretical framework to counter Western, instrumentalized views of animals and learning-teaching.
Supervisor: Leesa Fawcett
Miranda Black
Haudenosaunee Resistance and a History of Infrastructure Expansion Projects in Canada and the US
Modelling gendered health impacts of climate change in Malawi’s Lake Chilwa Basin
Nilanjana’s doctoral research focuses on applying an intersectional lens to model the gendered health impacts of climate change in Malawi through a combination of community participatory methods and systems thinking methodologies. She worked in the gold mining industry in West Africa for six years, where she recognized the need for better integration of health into environmental impact assessments, prompting her to return to academia to learn more about such intricate relationships.
Supervisor: Martin Bunch
Peri Dworatzek
Ecosystem Service Payments as a Climate Solution: An Examination into Successful Aspects of Ecosystem Service Payment Policy Programs Supervisor: Mark Winfield
Phyllis Nowakowski
Activist/Socially Engaged Arts, Social/Environmental Movements, Leadership/Scholarship from Margins
Phyllis Novak (she/they) is a social arts curator, researcher, and strategist, trained in theatre performance with an interdisciplinary arts practice. She is the founding Artistic Director of SKETCH Working Arts (1996-2021) and is now working on her PhD at York University Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, in Arts and Social and Environmental Movements, centering community activist scholarship from the margins. She was an inaugural fellow of the 2015 Toronto Arts Council Cultural Leaders Lab.
Sex and Disability: Theatre as a Tool of Liberation and Sex Education
Supervisor: Sarah Flicker
Sayeh Dastgheib-Beheshti
Critical Design Pedagogy for Social Wellbeing
Supervisor: Justin Podur
Simon Addison
The political ecology of private sector investment in nature-based solutions to the climate crisis
For the past 20 years, Simon has worked in the field of international development and humanitarian action, as a researcher, policy analyst, and project manager. Most recently he has supported communities, governments, and NGOs to develop innovative solutions to the climate crisis, especially in contexts affected by compound risks such as chronic poverty and inequality, biodiversity loss and land degradation, conflict, and forced displacement, with a focus on Eastern and Southern Africa.
The Graduate Program in Environmental Studies at York is an exciting environment to pursue innovative, socially engaging, career-ready education. Contact our Graduate Program Assistant to learn more.
