People
Find out more about the people who make up the Manchester Urban Institute (MUI).
Leadership
Prof James Evans is the Director of the Manchester Urban Institute (MUI) where he leads the ‘Smart and Sustainable Cities’ research theme.
He is Professor of Geography and former Head of the Department of Geography in the School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED).
His research focuses on how cities learn to become smarter and more sustainable.
He has published widely, with over 40 peer-reviewed papers and two authored books in the field, and his work on Urban Living Labs has been foundational across the social sciences.
He led the University's involvement in Triangulum, a £25million Horizon 2020 project to establish smart districts across Europe, and the Manchester Urban Observatory, a £1million EPSRC-funded initiative as part of the UKCRIC portfolio.
Prof Karen Lucas is Deputy 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.
Emma Tsoneva started work as the Institute Manager of the MUI in August 2023.
In addition to supporting Manchester urban scholars in elevating world-class research, Emma is helping develop MUI’s research and funding strategies as well as driving the institute’s stakeholder engagement.
Emma is the point of contact for enquiries about the Institute.
Emma’s background is in university research administration.
She has a particular interest in developing international projects and has coordinated the International Network for Transport and Accessibility in Low-Income Communities since 2017.
Emma has an MSc in Development Management (2022) from the Open University and has worked in both research and administrative capacities on several UK and European-based projects at Manchester and elsewhere.
Membership
- Ransford A. Acheampong
- Jenna Ashton
- Mark Baker
- Nikki Banks
- Adam Barker
- Tanja Bastia
- Rob Bellamy
- Ali Bhagat
- Philip Black
- Joe Blakey
- Stefan Bouzarovski
- Alison Browne
- Bridget Byrne
- Jeremy Carter
- Greig Charnock
- Kath Checkland
- Admos Chimhowu
- Angela Connelly
- Ian Cotton
- Martin Coward
- Angela De Souza Torresan
- Jo Deakin
- Iain Deas
- Martin Dodge
- Jamie Doucette
- Henrik Ernstson
- Wiesam Essa
- Gillian Evans
- James Evans
- Francesca Gains
- Sahil Gandhi
- Nuno Gil
- Tom Gillespie
- Abigail Gilmore
- Sarah Marie Hall
- Julien Harou
- Graham Haughton
- Richard Heeks
- Caitlin Henry
- Martin Hess
- Michael Hodson
- James Hopkins
- Kirsten Howarth
- Ceri Hughes
- Deljana Iossifova
- Carys Jones
- Richard Kingston
- Richard Kirkham
- Caglar Koksal
- Alan Lewis
- Sarah Lindley
- Karen Lucas
- Ray Lucas
- Sarah Mander
- Yaron Matras
- Juan Medina-Ariza
- Ian Mell
- Andrew Miles
- Nate Millington
- Stephen Milner
- Leandro Minuchin
- Diana Mitlin
- Anupam Nanda
- Krassimira Paskaleva-Shapira
- Saska Petrova
- Elisa Pieri
- Nuno Pinto
- Laura Pottinger
- Carlo Raffo
- Debbie Ralls
- Joe Ravetz
- Dave Richards
- Liz Richardson
- Lisa Riste
- James Rothwell
- Alina Rzepnikowska Phillips
- Lucia Sa
- Felipe Gonzalez Santos
- Seth Schindler
- Andreas Schulze Baing
- James Scorer
- Philip Shapira
- Constance Smith
- Lukasz Stanek
- Alfredo Stein Heinemann
- Erik Swyngedouw
- Ioanna Tantanasi
- Cristina Temenos
- Sotirios Thanos
- Harriet Thomson
- Joanne Tippett
- Paul Tobin
- Mark Usher
- Sanne Valthuis
- Eero Valtonen
- Arpana Verma
- Stephen Walker
- Sundhya Walther
- Kevin Ward
- Saskia Warren
- Kelly Watson
- Greg Williams
- Cecilia Wong
- Yishuang Xu
- Albena Yaneva
- Alexia Yates
- Razieh Zandieh
- Amy Yueming Zhang
- Helen Wei Zheng
- Dave Carter
- Vincent Goodstadt
- John Holden
- Ruth Lupton
- Neil McInroy
- Anthony Vigo
- Eman Abouziyan
- Hanan Abu Mahfouz
- Mohd Helmi Abu Yahya
- Elizabeth Ackerley
- Dimas Adrianto
- Sulaiman Albhijan
- Cecilia Alda Vidal
- Fahad Alharbi
- Majd Alnajem
- Lourdes Alonso Serna
- Godfred Amankwaa
- Alexandra Arenes
- Esteban Arevalo Maldonado
- Denis Arinabo
- Thomas Arnold
- Daniel Arubayi
- Aya Badawy
- Whitney Banyai-Becker
- Isis Barei-Guyot
- Jennifer Barker
- Benjamin Blackwell
- Maria Bohada Rodriguez
- Alison Briggs
- Pauline Brown
- Andreina Carrillo Espinoza
- Debapriya Chakrabarti
- Elyse Comeau
- Louis Cyuzuzo
- Timna Denwood
- Purva Dewoolkar
- Michael Dimelow
- Thomas Fryer
- Yahia Gamalaldin
- Erika Garcia
- Lucie Golton
- Lauren Greehy
- Amy Hanley
- Ghaydaa Hemaidah
- Mario Hernandez Trejo
- Annika Hjelmskog
- Samuel Holden
- Majd Jayyousi
- David Johnson
- Gilead John Teri
- Kunzhe Kang
- Ambarish Karamchedu
- Epiphania Kimaro
- Demetra Kourri
- Yuliya Kulynych
- Harriet Larrington-Spencer
- Rachel Lauwerijssen
- Jeongseong Lee
- Chou Hon Leong
- Jiawei Li
- Ksenia Litvinenko
- Qi Liu
- Jianyi Liu
- Hannah McNicol
- Denise Misleh Heller
- Simon Mitchell
- Hairul Mohd Radzuan
- Brett Mommersteeg
- Caitlin Morrissey
- Graeme Moore
- Nick Moule
- David Mountain
- Osama Naim
- Paromita Nakshi
- Syed Danial Naqvi
- May Abdelhakeem Newisar
- Charles Oppong
- Sawyer Phinney
- Maria Prieto
- Adam Przywara
- Mayang Puteri
- Yitian Ren
- Kerstin Rieger
- Amish Sarpotdar
- Fadi Shayya
- Ebru Shen
- Salma Soliman
- Bing Sun
- Mapenzie Tauzie
- Robert Thompson
- Arianna Tozzi
- Thomas Van Laake
- Vasileios Vlastaras
- Alexander Wharton
- Garrett Wolf
- Wenshi Yang
- Stylianos Zavos
- Yong Zhang
- Neil Brenner (Chicago)
- Tim Bunnell (NUS)
- Matthew Gandy (Cambridge)
- Brandan Gleeson (Melbourne)
- Mercedes Gonzalez de la Rocha (CIESAS, Mexico)
- Arif Hasan (Karachi)
- Jane Jacobs (NUS-Yale)
- David Imbroscio (Louisville)
- Roger Keil (York, Ca)
- Zhigang Li (Wuhan University)
- Pauline Lipman (UIC)
- Karen Seto (Yale)
- Eugene McCann (Simon Fraser)
- Tim Moss (HB Zu Berlin)
- Sue Parnell (Bristol)
- Linda Peake (York, Ca)
- Jamie Peck (UBC)
- Stephanie Pincetl (UCLA)
- Ananya Roy (UCLA)
- Stefan Siedentop (Dortmund)
- Matti Siemiatycki (Toronto)
- Ivan Turok (Human Science Research Council of South Africa)
- Pengjun Zhao (Peking)