People
Find out more about the people who make up the Manchester Urban Institute (MUI).
Leadership team
Prof Karen Lucas is Director of MUI where she leads the ‘Transport and Mobilities’ research theme.
She is Professor of Human Geography and Director of Research in the Department of Geography in SEED.
Karen has 25+ years’ experience in delivering social research into practice in transport, employing a variety of mixed methods approaches to issues of mobility, accessibility, and social justice.
Karen is a world-leading expert on transport and social justice in the Global North and South and is currently devising a new integrated methodology for the social assessment of road projects for National Highways.
Anupam Nanda currently holds a full professorship (Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate/Chair in Real Estate) at the University of Manchester. His current position includes the role of the Co-Deputy Director of the Manchester Urban Institute and REF Coordinator (joint) of the Department of Planning, Property & Environmental Management. He has established and led the Manchester Real Estate and Urban Economics research group. Anupam is also a member of the Board of the European Real Estate Society (ERES).
He has more than eighteen years of experience as a researcher, educator and consultant. Prior to joining the University of Manchester in 2019, he was at the University of Reading/Henley Business School (2010-19), where he was a Research Division Lead and Programme Director for the MSc in Real Estate Finance. Prior to joining the University of Reading, Anupam held non-academic roles at Deloitte and the National Association of Home Builders (US).
Anupam holds a PhD in Economics and fellowships of FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts), FRGS (Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society) and FHEA (Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK).
Anupam's research themes/sub-themes are: economics of property markets; regional and urban studies; household sentiment & behaviours; cross-border investment; Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) and technology issues in urban and property markets.
Seth Schindler is an urban geographer focused on cities and urbanization in the Global South. His research focuses on the impact of geopolitical rivalry on cities and urbanization, and he co-founded the Second Cold War Observatory.
He is a Corresponding Editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and he was awarded Best Paper in Regional Studies (2022), Territory, Politics, Development (2015), and the 2021 Ashby Prize for an article in Environment and Planning A.
His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Antipode, and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Prior to joining the University of Manchester he coordinated the Global Studies Programme at Humboldt University of Berlin.
Emma is the point of contact for all enquiries to Manchester Urban Institute. Please contact her at mui@manchester.ac.uk.
Research contacts
- Dr Joanna Barrow, Post Doctoral Researcher
- Dr Jeremy Carter, Green Infrastructures Lead
- Professor Karen Lucas, Transport and Mobilities Lead
- Professor Anupam Nanda, Built Environment Lead
- Professor Seth Schindler, Cross-cutting Themes Lead
- Prof Arpana Verma, Health and Wellbeing Lead
Affiliated networks
- Dr Jenna Ashton and Dr Thomas Gillespie, Manchester Urban Institute Feminist Collective
- Dr Joanna Barrow and Dr Jack Benton, ECR
- Rati Sandeep Choudhury and Xin Li, PGR Network
- Joe Ravetz, Future-Wise Cities
- Professor Seth Schindler and Prof Kevin Ward, Second Cold War Observatory
- Emma Tsoneva, INTALINC