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I am an urban sociologist and an expert in urban community in all its forms. My research encompasses the outer suburbs in Australia, the gentrifying inner city and informal communities in cities in the Global South. My work focuses on how different urban places and spatial logic in the city impact our opportunities to form attachments to neighbourhoods and each other.

Internationally, I have written extensively on urban poverty in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia and I am currently involved in work on climate change and its effects on the urban poor in collaboration with colleagues in Indonesia, Brazil and Solomon Islands. My latest research concerns the impact of climate change and natural disasters on the urban poor. More than 1 billion people live in informal urban settlements or slums. These people are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. However, adaptation and mitigation policies are being formulated at multiple scales, often without considering the voices of the poor.

I am the Bachelor of Arts Sociology program convenor and an award-winning teacher. I teach courses at all levels in our undergraduate sociology program, including Introduction to Sociology (SOCY1050), An Urban World (SOCY2340) and Advanced Studies in Social Thought: Getting the Big Picture (SOCY3345).

I am also an award-winning photographer (you can see some of my work on my Flickr page.

I am open to proposals from potential Honours and PhD students who share my passion for understanding the social life of cities. Whether you're from Australia, the Global South, or anywhere else in the world, I look forward to the possibility of working together.

Dr Brydon Wang is an author, lawyer, and scholar researching the trustworthy regulation of technology. His work focuses on how we design and govern benevolent data structures and decision-making systems that support human-centric, climate-resilient cities. Dually qualified in law and architecture, Brydon brings more than twenty years of experience across construction, legal practice, and academia. He is currently an Associate Director at KPMG, advising on major infrastructure transactions, and an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland.

​Brydon’s research investigates how regulation can increase the perceived trustworthiness of decision-makers, particularly in contexts of automated systems and informational asymmetry. His interdisciplinary methods blend doctrinal legal analysis with creative research strategies. He was lead editor of Automating Cities: Design, Construction, Operation and Future Impact (Springer, 2021) and lead editor of the forthcoming Large Floating Solutions (Springer, 2025), a volume exploring sustainable marine infrastructure and governance, that follows on from the previous edited collection Large Floating Structures: Technological Advances (Springer 2015). His work has been featured by the Centre for Digital Built Britain (Cambridge University), The Conversation, ABC Radio National’s Future Tense, and Seeker’s How Close Are We to Living in the Ocean?

Before joining KPMG, Brydon taught contract law, data privacy, and AI regulation at the Queensland University of Technology, where he received the 2024 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Early Career Teaching. He also taught Responsible Data Science in UQ’s Master of Data Science programme. His PhD thesis, The Role of Trustworthiness in Automated Decision-making Systems and the Law, was awarded the 2022 Faculty of Business and Law Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. His research combines doctrinal legal research with creative research methodologies to explore the governance of automation, digital infrastructure, and smart urban systems. Through his creative research strategies, Brydon has also become an award-winning artist.

​Brydon began his career in architecture and contract administration on award-winning construction projects, before practising as a technology and construction lawyer at Allens Linklaters. He remains passionate about integrating policy, law, and infrastructure to ensure technological systems are designed with trust and transparency at their core.

Stephanie Wyeth is the Professional Planner in Residence and Senior Lecturer within the Planning Program, and Director of Engagement for the School of Architecture, Design and Planning.

Stephanie is an experienced urban and social planning practitioner with significant research, project and leadership experience in the public and private sectors. She joined The University of Queensland in 2019 following several years as a Director with a multidisciplinary planning and design firm, where she led projects focussed on complex social, urban planning and development issues. Her motivation for joining academia is a belief that a values-led and practice intensive university experience is critical if the next generation of urban planning professionals are to be equipped with the skills, knowledge and mindsets to lead, sustained positive change in our cities, towns and communities.

As a pracademic, Stephanie seeks to bridge the theory – practice divide, by promoting the exchange of knowledge, ideas and capabilities across university, industry and community. She regularly facilitates and brokers opportunities for the university’s world-leading researchers to share their expertise with government and community for projects with a strong public interest focus. Stephanie is regularly invited to join advisory forums and judging panels, and to speak at industry and community events.

Between 2016 – 2022 Stephanie served as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the South Bank Corporation. In 2020 she was appointed a Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia for services to the profession. Her most recent panel appointments include Logan Urban Design Awards, Lord Mayor’s Business Awards (Brisbane), and an advisory committee for a national design project.

Memberships

• Planning Institute of Australia
• Committee for Brisbane

Teaching Responsibilities

PLAN1000 The Planning Challenge (Course Coordinator and Lecturer – 2019 to date)

PLAN1100 Foundational Ideas in Planning (Course Coordinator and Lecturer – 2019 to date)

PLAN4001/PLAN7120 Citymaking: Theory and Practice (Course Coordinator and Lecturer – 2020-2022)

PLAN4100 Advanced Planning Practice (Course Coordinator and Lecturer – 2021 to date)

PLAN4130 / PLAN7130 Planning Industry Placements (Course Coordinator and Lecturer – 2019 to date (Semesters 1, 2 and Summer)

ENVM3103 Regulatory Frameworks for Environmental Management and Planning (Guest lecturer 2021-2023)

Various guest lectures providing insights into urban planning, employability and planning practice.

Student supervision for PHD, Honours and research projects

Awards

2022 Teaching Award - Planning Program, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

2022 Staff Award, Organisation of Planning Students

Service and Engagement

Director of Engagement – School of Architecture, Design and Planning (2023 to date)

Academic Program Advisor for Bachelor of Regional and Town Planning (2021 to date)

Deputy Director of Engagement School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (2022 – 2023)

Co-founder and Director of UQ City Impact Lab (2021 to date)

Research Affiliate – UQ Sustainable Infrastructure Research Hub (since 2022)

Member - UQ Community Engagement Community of Practice – Leadership Group (since 2023)

Planning Institute of Australia (Qld) - Fellow

Emily is an experienced evaluator and policy analyst whose experience is designing, collecting and interpreting high quality evidence to improve outcomes for priority groups. She has deep, strategic knowledge of the Australian public sector, working alongside government agencies to design, implement and evaluate large, complex social policy initiatives.

Emily's motivated by helping her clients to use evaluation and research to understand the people they serve - conumers, service providers, Executive sponsors, advocacy groups - to deliver tailored programs and achieve better outcomes both for people and human service systems.

Her ability to build rapid rapport, synthesise complex information and balance perspectives means she is an in-demand strategic facilitator and trusted advisor to the executives of government agencies.

Her work creates impact because of her ability to connect information and people. She's great at taking complex information and making it simple and easy to action.