Meet the Team

Dr. Afia Raja is an Associate Professor at the Department of Planning, Geography and Environmental Sciences at UFV. Her areas of interest include sustainable development, smart cities and land use transportation interaction. Afia graduated from Texas A & M University, USA with a PhD in Urban and Regional Science, Graduate Certification in Geographical Information Systems and another Graduate Certification in Transportation Policy. She has been teaching various Urban Planning, Geography, GIS and Sustainability courses since 2004, both at the undergraduate and graduate level within many departments at the of the University of Engineering & Technology-Pakistan. Additionally, she has been supervising many research projects and dissertations. She has also worked as Assistant Professor at Western Oregon University, teaching many human geography courses including Introductory Economic Geography, Introductory Cultural Geography and a few courses related to Cartography (GIS), Globalization and Sustainability. Most of her teaching has applied projects, she works very closely with the “Centre for Experiential and Career Education-UFV” and her classes win multiple awards at the CityStudio Showcase every year. Her publications and current working papers reflect her strong research interests in GIS-based urban planning and decision making, housing, neo-urbanism, livability, transportation and geospatial planning. She deployed participatory approaches in planning using tactical urbanism for the City of Mission Waterfront Development securing the prestigious SSHRC Engage Grant. She is also the primary researcher on Heat mapping, risk assessment and planning response for The City of Abbotsford, The City of Mission and the Leq’a:mel First Nations.