Visiting Researcher
Efadul Huq is a doctoral student and distinguished fellow in the Dept. of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He completed B.S. in Civil Engineering (with minors in Mathematics and Creative Writing) and holds a Master of Urban Planning. In his current research, Huq is exploring urban climate resilience in cities of the global south. He wants to develop greater understanding of planning complexities related to waterbodies, flooding, and encroachments and is now focusing on Dhaka. More generally, Huq is interested in urban informalities, political ecology, transnational solidarity networks and people’s planning practices that uphold housing, environmental, and labor rights of marginalized communities. He worked with several community and student organizations that focus on affordable housing, immigrant-friendly communities, economic justice, and human rights. He is particularly interested in how low-income urban dwellers negotiate with state and private entities to assert their right to the city. He is a poet and artist interested in mixed-media interventions that address urban issues. Recently, he worked on a project to study and document the practices of insurgent collectives across U.S., South Africa, and Mexico that struggle against displacement and propose alternative pathways to a humane urbanism.