I obtained a PhD (Urban Studies & Planning, MIT) before returning to Europe in 2011 with a Marie Curie fellowship. Situated at the intersection of urban planning and policy, social inequality and development studies, my research examines the extent to which urban plans, policies, and socio-environmental interventions contribute to more just, resilient, healthy, and sustainable cities. I also study how community groups in distressed neighborhoods contest environmental inequities as a result of urban (re)development processes. I am based at UAB-ICTA where I lead the research line Cities & Environmental Justice, direct the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice & Sustainability, and headed the ICTA Gender, Diversity, Care, and Wellbeing Committee from 2021 to 2025. Much of my work takes place in marginalized neighborhoods resisting displacement from unequal development, climate impacts, and exclusionary environmental policies in Europe, the Americas and S Africa.

My research examines how environmental injustices are produced, experienced, and contested. First, I analyze the politics of the “green city” as a dominant planning paradigm, focusing on how low-carbon policies, densification projects, and nature-based solutions are governed and unevenly implemented. Second, I investigate the social, racial, and spatial dynamics of green and climate gentrification, examining how environmental interventions reshape housing markets, displacement pressures, and everyday experiences for historically marginalized residents. Third, I focus on planning for health and wellbeing, advancing a justice-oriented approach to health equity that links urban environments, climate exposures, and unequal access to nature and care infrastructures. Fourth, I examine tactical urbanism and sustainable mobility as arenas of urban transformation, analyzing how experimental interventions and mobility reforms generate contestation and struggles over legitimacy and democracy.