EUC Research Update – November/December 2025

Accolades, Awards and Acknowledgements

Following its startling cancellation in the US, Nature’s Wild with Andil Gosine has been reinvented for Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto, Canada! The exhibition, which opened from October-November featured works developed in partnership with Canadian and international artists, including Bev Koski, Zachari Logan, Natalie Wood, Angie Quick, Deborah Root, Romy Ceppetelli and Llanor Alleyne.

Collaboration has long been a cornerstone of Gosine’s practice, and this commitment is further reflected in a newly completed piece with Trinidadian artist Marinna Shareef, which made its debut at the show.

Morgan Brie Johnson received a Femida Handy Award in recognition of her outstanding dissertation work titled Clowning Canada: Performing the Structured Innocence of Settler Colonial Domesticity (2024). The creative project is an original short film, Land Hunger—a dark, feminist, clown satire of settler colonial nation-state building that explores how gendered histories of domestication were foundational for colonization in Canada and are still viscerally haunting the present. Handy is EUC professor emerita whose research spans volunteering, philanthropy, and environmental studies. She has published on the intergenerational transmission of environmental behaviors and co-authored the children’s book Sandy’s Incredible Shrinking Footprint, demonstrating her commitment to fostering environmental awareness across generations. She is currently professor at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice.

A symposium titled “By what do you mean by the urban?” celebrating Roger Keil’s work and mentorship was held this November. Former students, staff, and colleagues acknowledged and reflected on his impact in their academic and professional development and honored his legacy. Keil recently retired after more than 30 years of institution-building, engaged scholarship, and mentorship, benefitting students and colleagues at York University and beyond. Internationally recognized for his work on urban political ecology, cities and infectious diseases, and global suburbanization, his influence reaches far beyond his hundreds of publications. Thanks to his leadership York’s CITY Institute became a globally respected hub for critical, interdisciplinary urban research and a supportive space for students, early career scholars and community collaborators. Across continents, his ideas and mentorship have fostered solidarities and inspired generations to pursue urban questions. The CITY Institute has set up a Roger Keil Endowment Fund for Urban Political Ecology that will provide ongoing support to graduate students and emerging scholars working in the critical traditions that he has so powerfully advanced. An article reflecting on the legacy of Roger Keil’s scholarship has recently been published in Urban Political Ecology (November 2025).

Laurence Butet-Roch gave her keynote speech on “Attuning Research: Reflections on Resisting Extractive Practices” in the recently held Environmental Studies (ES) PhD Research Day with the theme Refusal/Refugia. Her most recent work on Remediating Toxic Images: Relating Practices for Representational and Environmental Justice reflects on her reporting practice as an environmental media scholar, photographer and writer, and advocates for combining two approaches to develop a critical and just eco-photography practice: attunement to haunting and participatory methods of visual discourse analysis, such as elaborated images.

The annual event, co-organized by ES PhD Program Coordinator, Cate Sandilands, ES Graduate Program Director, Liette Gilbert, and the PhD Environmental Studies Student Association (PhESSA) showcased graduate student research and provided a platform for students to present their ideas and receive feedback from peers towards enhancing their research, to network with peers doing like-minded research, and to explore potential collaborations.

Joseph Mensah has been invited as one of the distinguished speakers at the 2025 Global Evidence and Impact Conference taking place at the Edmonton Convention Centre on December 11 as part of a collective effort to create and inspire inclusive communities. An internationally recognized scholar whose research focuses on critical development theory and its intersections with race, gender, transnational migration, and social identities, Mensah has published extensively on topics such as anti-Black racism, political identities and the systemic effects of racism on communities and societies. His notable works include Black Canadians: History, Experiences, Social Conditions, and Boomerang Ethics: How Racism Affects Us All. He will lead an engaging discussion with the audience on “Entanglements of Race, Space, and Class in Education.”

Congratulations to Susan Shumba, a recipient of Maureen Owino TrailblazHER award! The award is named after EUC PhD Candidate in Environmental Studies, Maureen Owino to honor her legacy of being an advocate, mentor, and leader. Owino is an activist scholar and researcher with expertise in health equity, implementation science, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). My work is rooted in advancing Black health, public policy, and social justice, with a specific focus on HIV, COVID-19, and addressing racial injustice. I am dedicated to examining the intersections of health, public policy, and systemic inequities to drive meaningful change. My work bridges research and action, fostering impactful solutions for marginalized communities.

EUC PhD student Natalie Wood won the 2025 Michael Baptista Essay Prize Award at the graduate level for their paper on Tidal Relations: Pelagic Theories of the Black Atlantic. In this work, Wood looks at the movement of the sea, its tides and its relations to herself, to history and land, as a Tidalectic methodology for understanding the progression of change and justice.

Wood is a Trinidadian-born artist, curator, educator, and community-based queer activist whose work blends popular culture, education, and historical research. In addition to her studies, she is also a tenured professor at George Brown College.

Fred Schwartz, MES 73 and EUC Adjunct Professor, co-published a book on Building a Sustainable Future with Right Action (2025). The book challenges conventional economic wisdom by proposing a compelling new framework that places human dignity and environmental stewardship at its core. It is a valuable exploration of what it means to build a regenerative economy, moving beyond outdated metrics of growth to embrace models like doughnut economics. The authors provide actionable strategies for businesses to transition from extractive to circular designs, emphasizing the importance of product life extension and supply chain stewardship. This book is a practical guide for entrepreneurial educators and innovators who seek to create ventures that not only generate a return on investment but also deliver profound social and environmental value.

EUC Professor Emerita Gerda Wekerle recently held an exhibition titled The (Re)Constructed City at Gallery 1313 in Toronto, Canada. While she has researched, written about and taught courses on housing, urban development and policy since the 1970s, visual art has more recently become a new language to communicate her response to the growth and destruction of urban spaces.

Her art foregrounds the lived city. Initially, she set out to document the fleeting, temporary geometric shapes created by construction cranes and related equipment in Toronto’s most recent boom of high-rise development. But the focus on images of massive new construction by both proponents of growth and its critics overlooks the human life that animates and transforms the city.

Melinda Zytaruk (MES 2004) and CEO/President of Tooketree Passive Homes, a climate and housing-focused social enterprise based in Muskoka, Ontario, recently presented how their SEED building systems help home builders achieve the world’s highest standards for energy efficiency, sustainability, comfort, and durability. The company is recognized for its commitment to ecological responsibility and has received multiple awards for its innovative approach to green construction. Her consulting company provides research, policy and project services to government, not for profits and the private sector in housing, sustainability, renewable energy, carbon emissions reductions, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Publications and Reports

The EUC Impact Report 2024-2025 is now available. The report highlights our collective actions across three key areas — experiential education, alumni engagement and research in action — where EUC faculty, students and staff are making a tangible difference. Read through the stories showcasing the power of our community to drive positive change, to inspire the next generation of environmental and urban leaders, and to generate solutions that make a difference in the world. Also, the EUC Global Research Map is now available on our website showcasing how our researchers are engaged in collaborative relationships, projects and partnerships with colleagues and institutions around the world!

Bain, L., A., Johnston, L., Misgav, C., & Silva, J., M. (2026). Introduction: Co-authorship in feminist and queer geographies. In A. L. Bain, L. Johnston, C. Misgav & J. M. Silva (Eds.), Co-authoring feminist and queer geographies: Collaborations, mentorships, solidarities, friendships. Routledge.

Beveridge, R., Keil, R., and Lashkari, M. (2025). The modalities and politics of crisis urbanism: A new reparative conjuncture? Dialogues in Human Geography, (Accepted for Publication).

Biorklund, L. and Hyndman, J. (2025). 7 Decolonizing Feminist Geopolitics. In De Gruyter Handbook of Feminist Political Geography. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.

Castelli, G., Howard, B. C., Adyel, T. M., AghaKouchak, A., Agramont, A., Aksoy, H., Olusola, A., … and Ceperley, N. (2025). Co-creating water knowledge: a community perspective. Hydrological Sciences Journal.

Desai, C., Hammad, S., Shaban, A., A., & Takriti, A., R. (2025). Scholasticide and resilience: The Gaza genocide and the struggle for Palestinian higher education.  Curriculum Inquiry, 1-37.

Flicker, S., Hassen, N., & Fields, J. (2025). An intersectional feminist approach to collaborative data analysis. In K. C. Schwarz, C. Mitchell & R. Hutten, Collaborative methods: Participatory data analysis in feminist research. University of Alberta Press.

Funk, L., Rotz, R., and Desmarais, A. (2025). Land data for whom? The marketization, privatization and commercialization of land data management in Canada, Geoforum, Volume 165, 104355.

Kapoor, I. (2026). Extimate nature: Environmental crisis and the excluded. Political Geography, 124, 103434.

Kusno, A. (2025). David Reeve. To remain myself: The history of Onghokham. The American Historical Review, 130(3), 1257-1258.  

Kusno, A. (2025). The rise and fall of Glodok. In S. Boonstra, B. A. B. Jones, K. McGregor, K. M.P. Setiawan & A. W (Eds.), Rethinking histories of Indonesia: Experiencing resisting and renegotiating coloniality. Anu Press.

Orimoloye, I.R., Belle, J.A., Olusola, A., Ololade, O.O. (2025). Space-Based Drought Disaster Risk and Climate Change Assessments: Strategies for Environmental Conservation. In: Lackner, M., Sajjadi, B., Chen, WY. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. Springer, Cham.

Pourkarimi, E., Moreno, E., L., Etcheverry, J., & Poorhashemi, A. (2025). Legal and environmental analysis of Canada’s obligations to reduce carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement 2015. Canadian Institute for International Law Expertise, 7(12), 17-33.

Praharaj, A. and Schwartz, F. (2025). Building a Sustainable Future with Right Action. November, Independently published.

Purdon, M., Winfield, M., and Scherrer, F. (2025). Planning Capacity and Delegated Authority for Decarbonizing Metropolitan Regional Transportation: A Comparison of California and Quebec. Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy.

Scott, D. (2025). “The Power of ‘Net Zero’: Seductive Dispossession on the Critical Minerals Frontier”, Law Text Culture 28(1), 100–138.

Thienpont, J., R., Korosi, J., B., Blais, J., M., & Smol, J., P. (2025). New developments in paleo-ecotoxicology: Emerging approaches in applying lake sediments archives to assess impacts from aquatic pollution. Current opinion in Environmental Science & Health, 100667.

CALL FOR ARTISTS: Politics/Poetics of Migration
The Harriet Tubman Institute presents Politics/Poetics of Migration. This Black History Month exhibition invites artists to explore the complex histories, movements, and futures shaped by Black migration – voluntary and forced, historical and contemporary, local and global. From the Middle Passage to the Great Migration, from diaspora to return, this exhibition considers how movement defines Black life, culture, identity, and resistance. This call is open to Black-identified artists working in any medium, including but not limited to painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, performance, textiles, sound, and new media. Both emerging and established artists are encouraged to apply, and York University and non-York University affiliates can apply. Submission Deadline: Friday December 19, 2025. Exhibition Title: Politics/Poetics of Migration. Exhibition Dates: February 2 to 27, 2026 (Black History Month). Exhibition Opening Event: February 2, 2026. Venue/Location: Crossroads Gallery (HNES 283, Health, Nursing and Environmental Studies Building, York University). Curated by: Muna-Udbi A. Ali (Assistant Professor, EUC), Yasmine Espert (Assistant Professor, Visual Art & Art History, AMPD), Uzoma Ekpunobi (MA Student), Sheba Wiafe (PhD Student), and Aaron Joseph (MES Student), In collaboration with The Harriet Tubman Institute at York University. For questions or more information, please contact: Yasmine Espert and Muna-Udbi A. Ali at blackmigrationarts@gmail.com.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Seeking papers for Special Issue of Journal of Historical Geography Historical Animal Geographies

The Journal of Historical Geography invites proposals for a special issue of papers addressing Historical Animal Geographies, co-edited by Karen M. Morin and Alice J. Hovorka. Deadline for Abstracts: January 15, 2026.

Expressions of interest (consisting of a title and a 250-word abstract) should be forwarded to the editors of the special issue – Professor Karen Morin (morin@bucknell.edu) and Professor Alice Hovorka (ahovorka@yorku.ca) by January 15, 2026. The deadline for accepted submissions will be June 15, 2026. Submissions should follow the Journal’s standard guidelines https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-historical-geography and authors should feel free to contact the editors for advice and guidance. We invite papers from established scholars as well as early career scholars, and especially scholars from underrepresented regions, and the Journal of Historical Geography offers enhanced editorial support to these authors.

EUC and Associated Events

Upcoming Event

Today, November 26, 1-2pm, the Dahdaleh Institute invites you to a talk on The Toxic Legacies of the Oil and Gas Industry – Lessons in Decommissioning from the Niger Delta to North America. In this presentation, members of the Expert Working Group on the Bayelsa Commission, EUC Professor Anna Zalik and EUC PhD Alumnus Isaac Osuoka, will discuss the findings of “An Environmental Genocide: The Human and Environmental Cost of Big Oil in Bayelsa” report, the ongoing global project to implement the report’s recommendations, and the implications of the Niger Delta example for other international jurisdictions, including Canada.

Zalik is a professor in Global Geography, Environmental and Urban Change at York University where she teaches international environmental politics and the political ecology of extraction. Osuoka coordinates Social Action International, an organisation promoting resource democracy and the human rights and livelihoods of marginalised communities in West and Central Africa.

Recent Events

The Environmental and Urban Change Students’ Association (EUCSA) recently held a collaborative event with the Graduate Environmental Studies Students’ Association (GESSA) and the Geography Graduate Students’ Association (GeoGSA), where a panel of EUC graduate students shared their experiences in the MES, MES Planning, and MSc Geography programs, along with EUC Associate Dean Research Carlota McAllister.

The collaboration is aimed at fostering community, networking, and academic support between undergraduate and graduate students as well as community building where student groups work together to create a vibrant and inclusive environment within the EUC community.

The inaugural seminar in our 2025-26 online series More-than-Humanities: Interdisciplinary Collaborations, Multiagential Worlds, was launched on November 19 with an exciting new collaboration between the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University and the Centre for Environmental Humanities at the University of Bristol. Guest speakers included David Anderson, Andy Flack, and EUC PhD candidate Melvin Chan who explored the shared, sensory worlds of human and nonhuman animals. The seminar series highlighted exciting new environmental arts and humanities research, considering diverse forms of life and nonlife as collectively shaping past, present, and future worlds. The event is organized by EUC PhD Coordinator Cate Sandilands and environmental historian Andy Flack. Future sessions will be held in Winter 2026.

November 17-21 was Geography Awareness Week and in celebration of the event EUC hosted a Geographic Information System (GIS) Day on November 19 where participants explored innovative technology and its practical applications to real-world challenges. The event brought together elementary school, high school and university students, faculty, staff, industry experts, government representatives, and community partners to explore how geographic information systems can be used to understand and change the world. Throughout the day, speakers from Esri Canada, BEWHERE Inc., the Canadian Space Agency, Catalyst Earth, the Canadian Armed Forces, and EUC’s own faculty and student panels showcased concrete examples of GIS in action from environmental monitoring and emergency response to urban planning and climate solutions.

Also on November 20, EUC and the York University Geography Alumni Network (YUGAN) held a Geography Graduate Program Biannual Lecture with guest speaker William L. Quinton, Professor, Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University Director, Scotty Creek Research Station who talked about The Dehcho Collaborative on Permafrost: Working with Communities to Manage Permafrost Thaw.

Quinton has studied in the Canadian Arctic since 1987, and in the Mackenzie River valley region since 1991. He established the Scotty Creek Research Station in 1999 and since then has led several major research studies in the southern NWT focused on the impacts of permafrost thaw on hydrological processes.

On November 14, the PhD Environmental Studies Students Association (PhESSA), with the support of the ES PhD Program and the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change held its ES PhD Research Day. This annual event showcased the rich diversity of work being done by PhD students in Environmental Studies as it addressed the increasingly fraught social, ecological, economic, spiritual, and political conditions of our time.

The day’s theme, refusal // refugia, spoke to the need for work that is oppositional and confrontational, and work that nurtures relationships of protection and sanctuary and addressed the question “how can our diverse research refuse and/or become refuge”? The lineup of student presentations offered a rich diversity of student research highlighted by a keynote by ES PhD alumna Laurence Butet-Roch who talked about “Attuning Research: Reflections on Resisting Extractive Practices.” The event was co-organized by ES PhD Coordinator Cate Sandilands and Graduate Program Director, Liette Gilbert in collaboration with PhESSA student members.

EUC in the Media

Jennifer Korosi and Joshua Thienpont’s project on paleolimnological tools to assess past lake conditions near the Bruce Power site was featured in blog post by the Nuclear Innovation Institute/Bruce Power which funded initiative. The project uses paleolimnological methods to reconstruct past environmental changes in Lake Huron using sediment cores retrieved near the Bruce Power site. The information gained from the study is expected to provide important context for addressing public and Indigenous concerns, as well as supporting a cumulative effects assessment that is required as part of Bruce Power’s Impact Assessment for Bruce C project.

The third episode of the podcast Sounds Like Land! led by the Finding Flowers team Lisa Myers and Tania Willard on The Rad Alberta Episode is available now. Moving from a swamp walk within Cold Lake First Nation to an artist-led garden in amiskwacîwâskahikan / Edmonton, host Laura Grier speaks with Nigel Robinson, Auntie Tiffany Janvier, Becca Taylor, and Christina Battle on building resilience and sharing intergenerational knowledge through medicine, ceremony, and gardens. Together, they discuss the transformative power of community gardens in urban environments, and how these spaces create cultural and community health, revitalization, and resilience.

Mark Winfield and Jose Etcheverry were interviewed in article published in Now Toronto titled ‘Wildfires are just the beginning,’ Canada’s climate goals are in jeopardy: Scientist warn about the risks. A new report has found that Canada is failing to meet its 2030 climate targets, making it harder to reach future climate goals. Winfield suggests there may not be much in terms of legal consequences for failing to meet targets, but it would indicate that Canada is not going in the right direction in the fight against climate change. Meanwhile, Etcheverry shares innovative solutions to support the reduction of emissions such as sustainable affordable housing, including eco-friendly appliances like solar panels and heat pumps to power homes.