Regional Planning PhD Showcase, Zube Lecture Series Special Event
For this Zube Lecture Series special event, three PhD in Regional Planning students at LARP—Amber James, Tosin Bamidele, and Sara Nusair—will present their doctoral research exploring diverse topics, from rural resettlement programs in Rwanda to alternative approaches to urban heat adaptation in cities.
This event will be held on Thursday, April 16th, at 4:00 p.m. in the Design Building Lecture Hall (room 170). Admission is free and open to the public. All are invited to join us for a social hour with the presenters following the event. Appetizers and drinks will be provided
A recording of this discussion will be posted to UMass LARP's YouTube channel.
About the PhD Student Speakers
Amber James explores governance and collectivism in displacement spaces and the implications of climate change impacts on migration and habitation. In this talk, Amber will share her Fulbright research on the institutional architecture of rural resettlement programs and model green villages in Rwanda. In order to investigate the efficacy and reproducibility of government interventions, Amber mapped the diverse network of formal and informal actors engaged with the programs and conducted stakeholder consultations.
Amber is a 2024-2025 U.S. Fulbright Public Policy Fellow, a certified permaculturist, a solarpunk, and an international development practitioner with 15 years of experience.
Tosin Bamidele studies the intersection of technology, policy, and urban development, with a focus on how digital infrastructure shapes community outcomes. In this talk, Tosin will examine the New York City Department of Sanitation's Illegal Dumping Award and Tip Program, which pays residents to report dumping activity. Tosin traces the divergence between what administrative data says and what an affective public says, revealing insights on trust, surveillance, and inequity in ways official records do not capture.
Tosin brings a distinctive practitioner perspective to research. She is an architect with experience in public and historic preservation projects, and she holds an MBA that informs her attention to the organizational and economic dimensions of planning. Tosin is also a researcher on the NSF-funded Future of Work project, which investigates the spatial and social impacts of automation, particularly autonomous trucking, on local labor and community identity.
Sara Nusair explores extreme heat adaptation strategies and their cooling capacity across different climate zones. In this talk, Sara will share how the limitations of green infrastructure for heat adaptation highlight the need for alternative approaches grounded in traditional (vernacular) urban form and materials.
Sara serves as the GIS Library TA at UMass Libraries and is part of Professor Elizabeth Brabec's Cultural Landscapes of the Hopewell Earthworks research group. Last year, Sara coordinated the 8th Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning, serving as a committee member and editor of its Book of Abstracts. Sara holds an MS in Urban Studies from Jordan. Her professional experience includes working as an urban designer and lecturer. She contributed to the JUST-Able Project, funded by the Canadian Embassy, as a technical advisor and workshop facilitator.