who+we+are


 * [PS-UC] AESOP THEMATIC GROUP FOUNDERS **

[PS-UC] AESOP Thematic Group on Public Spaces and Urban Cultures has been initiated in 2009 by Sabine Knierbein, Ceren Sezer and Chiara Tornaghi after the Annual Meeting of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) in Liverpool (UK) in 2009. In April 2010 the initiative has been recognised as new Thematic Group Public Spaces and Urban Cultures by AESOP. However, the aim of the group is to settle the research focus on Public Spaces and Urban Cultures as well in other related disciplines. The group is currently growing. For a full members list please see members section.

**Sabine Knierbein** was born in Lippetal, Germany, in 1977. Having passed her A-levels in 1997, she realized an apprenticeship as landscape gardener before she started to study landscape architecture in 1999. She passed her diploma thesis at the University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück with distinction in 2004. Since 2008, she holds a position as head post-doctoral coordinator and assistant professor at the newly founded Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space (SKuOR) at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria. In June 2009, she was awarded a PhD (s.c.l., Dr. phil.) at the Institute for European Urban Studies at Bauhaus-University Weimar. (Read more)

**Ceren Sezer** is a graduate in architecture at Istanbul Technical University (Istanbul, Turkey) and in urbanism at Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands). She has practiced as an architect and urban activist in Istanbul and lecturer on urban theory in Delft University of Technology. She initiated The International PhD Seminar on Public Space in TU Delft and is working as a co-editor of two special issues on the same theme (in progress). Currently, she is finalizing her PhD research which investigates the relations between residential and public visibility patterns of Turkish migrants in Amsterdam. Since 2009, she is a member of coordination team of AESOP Young Academics Network (Read more)

**Chiara Tornaghi** is graduated in Politics and Sociology (2001) at the State University of Milan and she holds a Phd in Applied Sociology and Research Methods (University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, 2005) and a PG Certificate in Eureopean Spatial Planning (Newcastle University, UK, 2006). After teaching Urban Sociology at the faculties of Sociology (Milano Bicocca University) and of Architecture and Society (Polytechnic of Milan) she is now lecturer in Human Geography at the School of Geography - Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds, where she teaches Critical Geography of Public Spaces and is convenor of City and Social Justice: Research Frontier. (Read more)