Barsha Chitrakar is an architect and urban planner practicing in Kathmandu, Nepal. She completed her Double Master’s Degree in International Cooperation and Urban Development from TU Darmstadt and Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona. Her research interest lies in urban regeneration, role of streets as public open spaces and strategic urban policies in developing countries. Her research on role of regulatory and financial Instruments in urban land use planning in Kathmandu Valley analyzed how both the regulatory and financial tools can work in tandem to manage urban land use in Nepal. Her current work involves policy interventions to create a coordinated and consistent planning process in the country.

Anaïs De Keijser is an urban development expert with a research focus on ethical dimension of planning and city building. She has published on topics related to: social justice in infrastructure development, post-colonial theory, decentralised resilience in addition to reflections on housing of arrival within different geographical contexts. Her doctoral dissertation „Urban Justice in Service Provision: Household Water Provision and Disposal in Bujumbura“, published in 2018, presents strategies on how to ethically evaluate urban systems and proposes contextualised, case-study specific, action oriented recommendations.

Evinç Doğan is a lecturer at Akdeniz University, Turkey. She holds PhD in Management and Development of Cultural Heritage from IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca (Italy), and MSc in History of Architecture from Istanbul Technical University. Her doctoral dissertation “Analysing the impact of a mega-event on city image by visual methodologies: branding Istanbul during the European Capital of Culture 2010” presents how the image of Istanbul is projected through posters. She edited a book titled “Reinventing Eastern Europe – Imaginaries, Identities and Transformations”, currently in press by Transnational Press London. Her research interests include urban transformation, city branding, visual culture, cultural heritage and tourism.

Mirjana Ristić is the Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology - TU Darmstadt. From 2012 to 2016, she worked as Lecturer in Architecture and Urban Design at the Melbourne School of Design. She holds a PhD degree in architecture and urban design from the University of Melbourne (2012) and a BArch from the University of Belgrade (2005). Her research involves exploration of the socio-political issues in architecture and urban design and, in particular, the role of built form and public space in mediating socio-political conflicts. Her projects investigate urban destruction, reconstruction and commemoration in European cities. Her recent books include: Architecture, Urban Space and War: The Destruction and Reconstruction of Sarajevo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and  Mapping Urbanities: Morphologies, Flows, Possibilities edited with Kim Dovey and Elek Pafka (Routledge, 2018).

Anshika Suri is an architect and urban planner from New Delhi, India. Her research interest lies in analysing urban infrastructures through a feminist perspective. Her doctoral dissertation titled “Women and the Urban Sanitation Challenge: Tracing an intersectional relationship”, was in line with understanding the urban sanitation challenge being faced by women in informal settlements in the cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. Her current research interests focus on intersectional analyses investigating the discourse within feminist urban planning and retrogressive metamorphosis in gender-inclusive urban planning.

Nataša Čamprag Szabó is an expert in environmental protection, with a research focus on the pollutants of water and air. Her research deals with different biochemical parameters and their influence on the environmental and urban sustainability. Nataša holds a PhD from University in Belgrade, in which she investigated the influence of some air pollutants and meteorological parameters on the concentration of pollen in urban environments. Her MSc thesis deals with changes of eco-chemical parameters and their influence on the trophic status of the Lake Palić, a favorite but heavily polluted resort for the citizens of Subotica (Serbia). Currently, she holds a professorship for scientific field of biology and chemistry at the College of Vocational Studies in Subotica, Serbia. Her scientific work has been published in a number of international journals, such as  "Environmental Science and Pollution Research", "Water, Air & Soil Pollution", "Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society" and others.

Lauren Uğur is an urban development and management expert. Her research focuses on the realisation of integrated planning processes for the promotion of inclusive social and economic development. Currently, she holds a professorship for international tourism management at the Heilbronn University of Applied Science where her teaching and research cover a range of topics that seek to practically apply her theoretical work to the promotion of more resilient tourism destinations. Her most recent project has begun to unpack the economic, spatial and institutional complexities involved in the development of a resident-focused indicator set for inclusive local tourism development, starting with a case study on the City of Cape Town, South Africa.

Ulyana Vynyarchuk specializes in international cooperation and urban development. She completed her postgraduate Master’s Degrees in urban development and economic development at TU Darmstadt and Tor Vergata University of Rome. Having served different roles at local governments and the EU Delegation to Ukraine, she has spent most of her career working on projects for and with the cities. Currently active at the Department for Intercultural and International Affairs of the city of Darmstadt. Her key interest areas include policy analysis and design as well as facilitation of international cooperation networks, good governance and urban transformation processes in the post-socialist cities.