Sohail Ahmad
Lecturer (Assistant Professor)

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Research
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Biography

Sohail Ahmad is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sustainable Cities at the Department of Environment and Geography.

Ahmad’s works investigate low-carbon urban development options, inclusive built environments, and housing in South Asian cities. Focussing on low-carbon development, his works assess greenhouse gas emissions patterns and their determinants at household and city levels. To bridge the gap between formal and informal human settlements, he estimates the demand for housing and its attributes using household surveys and assessed socio-spatial exclusion and its determinants. Recently, his works have expanded to other Asian and African cities, particularly in social sustainability dimension, while working with the Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) project.

Prior to joining York, Ahmad worked at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow: SHLC, and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE). At the SHLC, he investigated the role of neighbourhoods in urban sustainability across 14 cities from seven Asian and African countries and played a crucial role in managing over 14,000 household surveys. While working at the CaCHE, he identified enablers and barriers to the uptake of heat pumps in the UK. Before Glasgow, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin with joint affiliation to the Technische Universität Berlin, and a JSPS-UNU Postdoctoral Fellow at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (Tokyo) with a joint affiliation with the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In these positions, he conducted research on environmental sustainability aspects in Asian cities. He briefly taught at the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

He received a PhD in City Planning from the Seoul National University, an MEd in Academic Practice from the University of Glasgow, a Master of Planning (Urban Planning) from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, and a BArch (Hons) from the Aligarh Muslim University.

His works have extensively used econometrics using Stata and R on large datasets and more recently he has used qualitative research methods such as focus group discussions and interviews. Currently, his interest has grown towards systematic literature reviews. He has published in peer-reviewed journals like Cities, Environmental Science & Technology, Urban Studies, and Habitat International.

Overview

Summary: I have pursued policy-relevant research focusing on addressing contemporary urban challenges, particularly in South Asian cities. I have striven towards research excellence using four-pronged strategies: a) pursuing applied research; b) employing innovative quantitative methods, often using uniquely created datasets; c) adopting an interdisciplinary collaborative approach; and d) adopting comparative approaches. These approaches result in 21 published journal articles and five book chapters. These works are funded by Asian and European organisations such as the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Scottish Funding Council. These works are divided into four themes.

Cities and climate change mitigation: Cities play a crucial role in climate change mitigation in many ways, including their urban forms and transport choices. My works examine GHG emissions and their determinants using uniquely created datasets (e.g., emissions are calculated from the Household Consumption Expenditure) to provide evidence-based interventions for climate change mitigation. Results reveal that certain urban development interventions, for example, dense urban forms, would bring multiple benefits like improving population health and environmental health. More recently, I have investigated challenges associated with the adoption of domestic Heat Pumps in the UK, which are crucial to reducing energy consumption in warming homes in the UK.

Housing and inequality in cities of the Indian subcontinent: A large share of urban inhabitants lives in slums and informal settlements in the subcontinent. Several research outputs investigate housing challenges using nationally representative household data to design evidence-based housing policies and programmes. I have highlighted housing inequality, where the impact of two or more forms of poverty like income and educational attainment intersect, in turn, sharpened policy interventions.

Urbanisation processes and human well-being: Most of the urban inhabitants will be added in Asian and African cities but their urbanisation processes are often not sustainable and inclusive. A couple of my works have established relationships between urbanisation processes and human well-being, in turn, suggest potential planning approaches that could maximise the benefits of urbanisation. Sustainable urbanism, for instance, acts as a modifier for access to modern cooking fuels, that improve environmental and public health.

Cities and neighbourhoods in Asia and Africa: Sustainable development requires understanding cities comprehensively, including systems thinking. In this context, a range of my works analyse cities encompassing several contemporary challenges such as housing, economy and governance system. Neighbourhood development and governance play a crucial role in overall outcomes. In this line, recent works focus on Asian and African cities.

Supervision

I would be pleased to hear from highly motivated students interested in pursuing PhD programme that resonates with my research interests in sustainable urban development, particularly focusing on the challenges in cities of the global south. I am also interested in development challenges in the middle east and therefore happy to discuss with potential students focusing on these regions.

Sohail Ahmad Lecturer (Assistant Professor)

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Research

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Sohail Ahmad
Lecturer (Assistant Professor)