Biography
23 June to 20 July 2025
Michael is an Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He previously worked at the United Nations and spent a decade as a faculty member at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. At the broadest level, he is interested in how cities are built and how people live in them. His research specifically focuses on urban planning, policy, and politics, with a particular interest in three themes related to urban spatial transformation: displacement, disasters, and densification. Across these topics, he has strong cross-cutting interests in migration, organisations and governance.
Hooper has broad geographical interests, having lived, worked and conducted research in many different places, ranging from Taiwan to Tanzania. Past research projects have addressed, among other topics, forced displacement in East Africa, post-disaster reconstruction in Haiti, migration and urbanisation in Mongolia and the climate-related risks faced by unsheltered residents of North American cities. He has been a visiting researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute and the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development. Professionally, he is a certified planner in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.