Adventures in Sustainability

Episode 3: Crisscrossing the world in the search of sustainable development

February 26, 2021 Fryderyk Paczkowski, Flor Garcia, Yu Chen Season 1 Episode 3
Adventures in Sustainability
Episode 3: Crisscrossing the world in the search of sustainable development
Show Notes

Yu Chen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN), University of Toronto, Canada. He received his PhD in sociology (2018) and MA in Latin American studies (2011) from the University of Texas at Austin. His research bridges urban/ housing development, sustainability, and public policy, with a geographical focus on Latin America and China. He has conducted ethnographic research in Mexico, Cuba, and China.

Yu Chen is currently leading CGEN's research initiative "Sustainable Peri-Urbanization in Mexico City". This initiative aims to implement community-based engineering projects to tackle sustainability challenges in peri-urban contexts. Moreover, Yu Chen and his colleagues at CGEN seek to bring community engagement and a social justice perspective in engineering education and research and to promote interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration. This year, under its Mexico City program, CGEN is developing a research network on sustainable water and sanitation with academic institutions and NGOs in Mexico.

In this episode, Yu tells us his adventures in understanding and living sustainability across China, Canada, and Mexico. We delve into the problems and ideas of solutions to address the needs of communities undergoing rapid urbanization. The roles of eco-technology, civil organizations, ecopreneurship, and academia are discussed.

Intro music "Fintches 72 " composed and performed by Alec Petizian.  Instagram: @Official_alec_petizian 

Outro music "Diversity"  composed by Frank and Rob Petizian.