Our champions

Professor Timothy Beatley
School of Architecture, University of Virginia

Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last twenty-five years. Much of Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges. Personal website: http://timbeatley.org ; http://BiophilicCities.org

Professor Thomas Elmqvist
Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Thomas Elmqvist is a professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. His research is focused on ecosystem services, land use change, urbanization, natural disturbances and components of resilience including the role of social institutions. He serves as associated editor for the journals Ecology and Society, Conservation and Society, Ecosystem services, and Sustainability Science. He has led the Cities and Biodiversity project, currently leading the Future Earth project "What is Urban" and he is part of the scoping expert group on regional and subregional assessments for IPBES.

Professor Nancy B Grimm
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

Nancy B. Grimm studies the interaction of climate variation and change, human activities, and ecosystems. Her interdisciplinary research in both urban and stream ecosystems has focused on disturbance, resilience, and biogeochemical processes. The Grimm Lab studies how disturbances (such as flooding or drying) affect the structure and processes of desert streams, how chemical elements move through and cycle within both desert streams and cities, the effects of stormwater infrastructure on water and material movement across an urban landscape, and impacts of extreme events on urban social-ecological-technological systems and their infrastructure. From 1997-2016, Professor Grimm directed the Central Arizona–Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research program, a pioneering interdisciplinary study of the Phoenix metropolitan region.

She currently co-directs a Sustainability Research Network focused on urban resilience to weather-related extreme events. She was president and is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America of and is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is an editor of  the AGU e-journal, Earth’s Future, a past program director for the U.S. National Science Foundation and senior scientist for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and a lead author for two chapters of the U.S. National Climate Assessment, released in 2014.

Gabriela Lee Alardín 
Professor, Department of Architecture, Urbanism and Civil Engineering. Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México. gabriela.lee@ibero.mx

PhD in Urban Studies, National University of Mexico (UNAM); Master’s Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Historic Towns and Buildings, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Architecture Degree, Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México (IBERO). Faculty member at IBERO since 1997, where she headed the Master Program in Projects for Urban Development from 2009 to 2016, and is a member of the research chair ‘Territorial dynamics and Well Being’. Obtained the INAH Prize 2015 (Restoration and Conservation of Architectural and Urban Heritage) to the best doctoral thesis, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History. Teaches subjects in graduate and undergraduate programs: design studios, architectural restoration, urban renewal workshops, urban history, and cultural heritage. Author of various texts on architectural and urban heritage in national and international publications, her research interests also include urban history and sustainable urban development.

• http://www.territorioybienestar.mx/quienes-somos/gabriela-lee/
• http://arqing.ibero.mx/profesor/gabriela-lee/

Professor Jari Niemelä
Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Dept of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki

Jari Niemelä is Professor of Urban Ecology and Dean of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki. He has a PhD degree in zoology (ecology) from the University of Helsinki. He has been working in various research teaching positions since 1980s. He also spent three years as a Postdoctoral researcher in Canada (University of Alberta, Edmonton) in the early 1990s. He has had his professorship in urban ecology since year 2000. Professionally, Niemelä is broadly interested in issues related to sustainable urban development. His own expertise is in ecology, biodiversity, and conservation biology, but his research team also addresses issues related to the integration of natural and social sciences. Niemelä is also interested and active in the science-policy interface, i.e. in transferring research results to the society to inform planners, decision-makers etc.

Peter Churchill
Honorary Professor, University of Birmingham

Peter Churchill has worked for over 37 years in research and research management. He is an environmental scientist by training, and until July 2016 was responsible for advising the Director General of the European Commission's scientific arm, the Joint Research Centre, on its scientific development. He has a full and deep knowledge of the European Union's research policy, research programmes, and research organisations. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.

Peter is now retired, working part time as an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham.

He has worked as an academic at Cranfield University UK, and as a consultant at Hunting Technical Services, UK before moving to work for the European Commission in 1988. Peter has extensive experience of research management, strategy and policy from the project level to the European and international level.

Peter has chaired G7 technical groups in a range of fields related to Earth observation, and has worked extensively with a wide range of European and international organisations.

Nick Grayson is Climate Change and Sustainability Manager for Birmingham City Council, with a current lead on natural capital. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham on the research programme called Liveable Cities (EPSRC) – ‘transforming the engineering of cities for global and societal wellbeing’.

In his City role Nick has had extensive European experience with the EU-Project URGE- devising a draft European policy for urban green space; EU-Cities-Adapt, involving 21 cities across Europe on multi- governance adaptation assessment. Nick authored of the City’s integrated Gi and adaptation policy- Birmingham Green Living Spaces Plan; that introduced natural capital to the City in 2013. In 2014 Birmingham was invited to join the global Biophilic Cities Network, a sharing platform for 11 aspirational green cities; becoming the UK’s first Biophilic City.

Nick contributed to the National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-On project and suggested the need for a Natural Capital Planning Tool. The UK Business Council for Sustainable Development helped shape a partnership to devise and test such a tool; initially supported by the RICS Research Trust. Now funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the Tool is being trialled nationally with 17 case studies - co-sponsored by RTPI and RICS.

The Liveable Cities research project has demonstrated the huge hidden significance of natural capital in cities; with systems thinking mapping revealing the inter-dependence of the other 4 capitals. Nick is keen to develop the deeper integration across Birmingham and the West Midlands Combined Authority, through the Natural Capital Roundtable; who are working with both HS2 and the economic intelligence unit on natural capital metrics. Nick is keen to embed a 25 year natural capital plan at the heart of the growth agenda; and in so doing construct all the essential elements of a natural capital protocol for cities; and provide the underpinning framework to achieve a Biophilic City- for all to enjoy. 2017 presentations at 12^th Metropolis World Congress, Global Challenges: Major Cities in Action, Montreal; and The UN World Forum on Natural Capital, Edinburgh.