Richard is Director of the Institute for Future Cities. His work focuses on projects and teaching that improve the quality of human life in cities across the world. He works with cities, businesses, communities and national governments to deliver positive and meaningful impact for citizens globally.

Particular areas of focus include developing programmes and strategies to make cities more sustainable and resilient; creating healthier urban environments; developing holistic urban development strategies for the developing world; using data analytics to optimise the design of city systems and infrastructure; and designing smarter cities.

Richard is particularly interested in supervising MRes projects in the following areas:

• urban sustainability and zero-carbon city strategies
• holistic sustainability strategies: Designing integrated policies that balance wellbeing, social issues, environmental protection, and economic growth
• financing sustainable cities: developing governance, business and financial models that enable transformative climate action
• urban resilience strategies
• affordable housing solutions
• designing cities for ageing populations
• urban design and policies for health and wellbeing
• energy poverty in the Global South
• sustainable urban development in the Global South

Bozena Sojka is an Urban Futures Research Fellow at the Institute for Future Cities, with an interdisciplinary background spanning migration studies, public health, youth engagement, and social policy. Her work focuses on improving urban quality of life by addressing health inequalities, strengthening community resilience, and advancing inclusive policy in diverse city contexts.

As a human geographer, her research examines how urban environments, social structures and cultural heritage shape the experiences of vulnerable youth, particularly during key life transitions. Working across human geography, sociology and social policy, she explores issues such as youth exclusion, access to social security and the challenges faced by marginalised young people, with attention to how place, identity and heritage intersect in urban settings. She is particularly interested in supervising MRes projects in the following areas:

• youth transitions, urban marginalisation, and social justice
• housing, homelessness, forced migration and precarious urban living
• urban futures for vulnerable or excluded groups

Robert is an Honorary Reader at the Institute for Future Cities. He has extensive experience working with and for communities, seeking to improve quality of life, strengthen sustainability and resilience, and make cities and communities more inclusive. His work focuses on ensuring that academic research makes a real-life difference to people and helps organisations improve quality of life.

Robert has engaged with research on sustainable communities and urban quality of life across the world, and has more than 35 years’ experience of working with citizens, academics and local government in placemaking. He has represented UK business and academic researchers on UK Government delegations to Brazil, China, Mexico and the US, and has been an adviser to city councils in Australia and the Philippines. In partnership with universities in England, Australia, South Africa and Brazil, Robert was co-lead of a project exploring the future of the city centre and was involved in projects on enhancing citizen participation and digital governance in Mexico, using sporting events to encourage social connectedness in the UK, inclusive tourism and informal settlements in the Philippines, and female entrepreneurship and shanty communities in Cairo.

Robert is particularly interested in supervising MRes projects in the following areas:

• sustainable communities
• measuring and improving urban quality of life
• future of city centres
• placemaking for community development
• inclusive tourism

Tracy Morse is Professor of Environmental Health and Head of Strathclyde Centre for Sustainable Development, supporting the University to embed sustainable development at the heart of its activities. Having previously been based in Malawi for 20 years, she leads an interdisciplinary research team focused on addressing environmental health challenges in low and middle-income countries. Working with global partners, she promotes transdisciplinary research that supports sustainable development for all and the transformational change needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Tracy is particularly interested in supervising MRes projects in the following areas:

• international sustainable development
• environmental health challenges

Dr Katherine Maxwell is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University’s Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability.

Her research and practice sit at the intersection of urban governance, climate policy and sustainable development. Her areas of expertise include urban climate governance; climate finance; adaptation and resilience planning in Global South cities; climate policy design and implementation; decarbonisation systems and innovative technologies across cities; and implementing climate action at the city scale. She has published widely in these areas, and her first book, Governance Networks for Sustainable Cities, was published by Routledge in 2023 and emerged from her DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development at Oxford. Katherine welcomes supervision enquiries from students working across these areas, particularly those whose research engages with policy and practice. Her supervision is enriched by parallel practitioner work as an Associate in Climate and Sustainability at Arup, and prior roles at C40 Cities, Sweco and WSP.

Katherine is particularly interested in supervising MRes projects in the following areas:

• urban climate policy design and implementation
• urban climate governance (vertical and horizontal governance approaches)
• resilience planning and strategies in Global South cities
• decarbonisation systems and technologies within cities
• implementing climate action: projects, programmes and finance

Francesco Sindico is Professor of International Environmental Law at the Law School. He's also Co-Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Climate Change Law Specialist Group, an elected member of the International Water Resources Association Executive Board, and Founder and Director of the Climate Change Legal Initiative.

He has published extensively on climate change and water law, and guest lectures on several programmes, including the Sustainable Cities programme led by the Norman Foster Institute. He co-leads the Strathclyde Centre for Doctoral Training on Partnerships for Sustainable Innovation, which focuses on how cities address sustainable development. Francesco has collaborated with governments and international organisations, both in training and in developing and supporting networks that share good practice and encourage policy development in the fields of island law and policy and water management.