Keynote speakers

KEYNOTE TITLE: Designing neighbourhoods for active ageing

Prof. Dr. Agnès Patuano is an Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning (Wageningen University – The Netherlands) and an expert on landscape architecture and human health.

She trained in landscape research through internships at the University of Sheffield (UK) and at TUWien (Austria), before pursuing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh (UK). While there, she joined the team at OPENspace, the international research centre investigating issues of accessibility and inclusivity of public outdoor spaces, particularly to older people and vulnerable communities.

She supported the development and delivery of an innovative MSc programme training a new generation of future practitioners in the fields of landscape architecture and wellbeing. She also contributed to the Mobility, Mood and Place research project, collecting quantitative and qualitative data on older people’s experiences of walking in urban environments. She is currently working on developing a research agenda operationalizing landscape design solutions to support and improve the health of populations.

KEYNOTE TITLE: The role of smart mobility hubs in creating sustainable neighbourhoods

Karst Geurs is appointed Full Professor of Transport Planning at Department of Civil Engineering. His research focuses on interactions between land use and transport, accessibility modelling and evaluation and the dynamics in travel behaviour. From 2009-2013 he was Associated Professor at the Department of CE. He worked at the National Institute for Public Health and Environment from 1997 and moved to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in 2005. In 2006 he received his PhD at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, on accessibility appraisal of land-use and transport policy strategies. He teaches master courses on Transport Policy and Planning, Land Use and Transport Interactions and Sustainable Transport within the Master Track Transport Engineering and Management.

He is chair of the Network on European Communications and Transport Activities Research (NECTAR), Editor-in-Chief of the European Transport Research Review (ETRR) and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Transport and Land Use (JTLU).

KEYNOTE TITLE: Justice and Neighbourhood Completeness in the North American Suburb.

Steven Farber is an Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC). His research investigates the social and economic outcomes of travel behavior, transportation planning, and urban form with an aim to provide empirical evidence in support of improved transport and social policy in cities. He is the Director of Mobilizing Justice, a national partnership conducting research in support of more equitable transportation planning, policy, and outcomes. He is also directing the Suburban Mobilities Cluster of Scholarly Prominence and is an Associate Director of the University of Toronto Mobility Network. Dr. Farber has authored more than 80 journal articles and book chapters on topics related to accessibility, time-use, mobility, equity, and participation in daily life activities. He sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Transport Geography, Travel Behavior and Society, Geographical Analysis, and the Journal of Geographical Systems.