Deepak Gopinath

I graduated with a degree in architecture and have since then been pursuing a career in town planning initially in practice and later in academia. Following my postgraduate studies in urban planning, my early career in planning started in development planning at the Delhi Development Authority, where I was involved in the preparation of Master Plan of Delhi 2001-21. I later joined the School of Planning and Architecture at New Delhi as Research Associate in the Department of Urban Planning where I was involved in both teaching and research. After which, I was offered a full tuition fee scholarship (through the Overseas Research Scholarship award as well as the University of Sheffield Fee Bursary) to carry out my doctoral studies at Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield. My career in academia re-commenced with my joining the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Dundee firstly as a Teaching Fellow in 2008 and later as Lecturer in 2009.

My overall research interest is on the spatio-temporal dimensions of resilience. In particular, I am keen to theorise resilience so as to develop an understanding of why some resources (including material resources such as income and assets, and non-material resources such as health and education) are valued more than others for individuals/communities to be resilient, and how is one setting out to achieve this? And, to what extent can such an analysis offer opportunities (or not) for spatial and social mobility of individuals/communities?

I currently teach on the following undergraduate modules: Design and Development (Level 2) and Planning Law and Practice (Level 3). The Urban Design class project carried out by students taking the module, Planning Law and Practice, is the subject of the annual, Dundee Civic Design Award competition (sponsored by Dundee City Council). For postgraduate students, I am involved in two modules: (1) 'Discourses in Urban Design', along with Mohammad Radfar; (2)  'Sustainability in Contemporary Cities' along with Dr. Vincent Onyango.

In addition, I am the Level 3 Year Tutor for undergraduate students and the coordinator for the Dundee University Access to Learning (DUAL) module on Town Planning and Environmental Sustainability. Also, I am Director for the new programme, MSc Advanced Sustainable Urban Design - please visit the programme blog, http://blog.dundee.ac.uk/urbandesign/ for more information.

With regard to doctoral supervision, Tamer Gado and myself are currently supervising Hisahm Moustafa, a doctoral student in Architecture. Further, I am keen to hear from potential doctoral students who share overlapping interests with my main areas of research.

Teaching/applied research interest

(1) With a view to effectively linking up with the achievement of a range of social, economic and environment goals, how best can we use Hodson and Marvin’s notion of ‘urban ecological security’ as a conceptual framework for examining current and shaping future urban growth management strategies?

(2) Caught between competing values such as ‘conformity’’ vs. ‘flexibility’, and ‘coherence’ and  ‘uniqueness’ etc, how might participatory mapping and community visioning techniques to create ‘sustainable communities’ be effectively shaped by local people?

Within this strand, I am currently working on developing techniques to carry out resource profiling through participatory mapping and drawing on from work I previously carried out: (1) developing place-based understanding of poverty within pro-poor governance strategies (Ref: British Academy funded study 2011); (2) engaging with community values in design charrettes (Ref: Scottish Government funded study 2010); (3) mapping of perceptions of spaces ‘as cultural/experiential resource’ from the point of view of diverse users recorded over time (Ref: On-going basic research titled ‘ Urban Anthology’, http://blog.dundee.ac.uk/urbandesign/urban-anthology-2/). Future projects include use of participatory GIS.