Alumni news | Sustainable Urban Development

Alumni of the Sustainable Urban Development programme share their news and research. We asked what they have gone on to research since finishing the course, what they're working on at the moment and what they're currently reading. Below we have collated some of the stories we received. 

Olena Ovchynnikova, MSc (2015 - 2017)

'Working and living in the times of COVID-19 pandemic has brought us all both challenges and new opportunities. In my work at the UN System Staff College in Bonn (Germany), we have fully gone online with all of the activities and support that we offer to our UN colleagues and the UN Member States. A big chunk of my work is now focused on providing capacity building to the UN Country Teams working around the world on the questions of socio-economic recovery from the pandemic.

'We put specific focus on the work in the areas of social protection, climate change, economic response and recovery, and smart urbanism. We work with our colleagues in ILO to promote the universal social protection systems and are fascinated to see how the discussion on the universal basic income has gained new supporters from economic thinkers who were traditionally against it

'I've also been working closely with our UNFCCC colleagues, who had to postpone COP26 and the 15th Biodiversity COP to 2021 but are working here from Bonn to understand the impact of the pandemic on our ability to address the climate emergency and how to rebuild green, clean and more resilient after COVID-19.

'Among the documents that are now on my table for reading are: UNDP’s COVID-19 and Human Development, The Dasgupta Review – Independent Review on the Economics of Biodiversity, McKensey’s Addressing climate change in a post-pandemic world. I am also waiting for the new 2020 Inclusive Wealth Report to be released by UNEP soon and am re-reading Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth after Amsterdam has become the first major municipality in the world to adopt the “doughnut economic.'

Mallory Baches, MSc (2016 - 2018)

'Toward the end of my dissertation, I took a position at Congress for the New Urbanism and am the Director of Strategic Development for the organization, reporting directly to the CEO. Needless to say, our strategy has had to be significantly re-evaluated, as COVID-19 has reared its ugly head (and the social and economic crises are compounding the health crisis). We have shifted our normally in-person annual Congress to a virtual one, and have added both additional course offer and have expanded breakout session offering to include pandemic-specific content. I’ll be presenting one of the programmatic areas I lead, the Project for Code Reform; which I feel is particularly helpful to (U.S.) cities as it offers an incremental regulatory reform approach (rather than expensive and contentious) wholesale zoning code reform), something crucial as municipalities combat reduced revenues while facing added burden on services.

'I’m also responsible for launching a new digital educational platform, with a complete curriculum dedicated to the principles and practice of New Urbanism in specific and placemaking in general. This project was completely coincidentally begun just weeks before the pandemic hit full stride, and so while it's still in the development phase, I’m excited for its launch in the next few months.

'I was also able to present my dissertation research at last year’s CNU Congress, so it is published in the organization’s New Urban Research.'

Melissa Tier, MSc (2017 - 2019)

'I'm starting a PhD program at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy cluster. It looks like I'll be joining both the Behavioral Science for Policy Lab and the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, where I'll be working with psychologists, economists, climate scientists, and more!

'I also want to connect with urban scholars at Princeton, such as hopefully by getting involved with the relatively new Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Systems Lab. My focus will likely continue to be in local climate and resiliency planning, with a new area of interest being behaviors and policies that do or don't overlap with regard to climate change and COVID-19.

'I've just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, which I found extremely powerful. It may not be that relevant outside of the US, but I've been thinking a lot about connections between climate risk, COVID-19 risk, and the ever-present and stark racial inequalities in this confusing country.'

Read Melissa's student spotlight.

Spring 2020