Samantha Biglieri
Assistant Professor Faculty of Community Services School of Urban and Regional Planning Toronto, Ontario samantha.biglieri@torontomu.ca
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Bio/Research
Samantha Biglieri is an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University, and the director of the Health, Access + Planning (HAP) Lab. As an urban planner, her research uses critical approaches at the intersection of planning and health/wellbeing...
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Bio/Research
Samantha Biglieri is an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University, and the director of the Health, Access + Planning (HAP) Lab. As an urban planner, her research uses critical approaches at the intersection of planning and health/wellbeing, making connections with practice to build inclusive and accessible communities. Biglieri’s work has included and continues through four overlapping areas:
1. Understanding experiences of people living with dementia in their neighbourhoods (e.g. accessibility of built environments and public engagement tools, and wayfinding in suburban areas).
2. Aging in the built environment, housing and policy (e.g. examining age-friendly policies, tracing financialization and long-term care, seeking alternative housing/service models).
3. Understanding experiences and governance in sub/urban areas (e.g. examining the governance of COVID-19 in the peripheries of Milan and Toronto).
4. Accessibility and disability in planning (e.g. understanding how professional planners conceptualize and operationalize accessibility and disability in their daily work).
Biglieri uses innovative text, oral, photo and mobile-based methods, having designed and conducted research using traditional and go-along interviews, GPS tracking, travel diaries, experiential sampling methods, photovoice, content analysis, jurisdictional scans, focus groups, as well as scoping reviews. She is also interested in the intersections of disability studies and care geographies with urban planning and how insights from this kind of research can work toward more just cities.
Biglieri’s work has been featured in academic journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, Planning Practice & Research, Health & Place, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Urban Affairs, Cities & Health and Wellbeing, Space & Society, at international events such as the Association of Collegiate School of Planning, Urban Affairs and #A11yIRL Accessibility in Real Life conferences, in edited books, and in industry publications like Plan Canada, the Ontario Planning Journal (now Y Magazine) and Planning (the American Planning Association Magazine).
Her research on age-friendly policies and population dependency ratios with Maxwell Hartt has been added to the Canadian Library of Parliament and was shortlisted for an early career research award from the Royal Town Planning Institute in the UK. Biglieri’s work has been showcased on local and national radio and podcasts, like her research on the accessibility of the built environment for people living with dementia on CBC’s Spark and aging in suburbia on the Upstream Foundation’s podcast. She recently published a co-edited book with Maxwell Hartt, Mark Rosenberg, and Sarah Nelson called Aging People, Aging Places from Policy Press. It is a combination of original academic research, practitioner and community member vignettes from urban, suburban, rural, and Indigenous perspectives, capturing experiences from across Canada. She co-edited a special issue of Plan Canada (the Canadian Institute of Planners Magazine) on aging and serves as the chair for the community health track at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning conference.
Biglieri holds a PhD in Planning from the University of Waterloo, a Master of Planning from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Global Development Studies and Italian from Queen’s University. Most recently, she was a SSHRC Post Doctoral Fellow at York University. Biglieri has a professional background in planning practice as a land-use planning consultant (site and neighbourhood scales; public engagement; policy work) and serves the community on the Board of the Toronto Council on Aging, a non-profit focusing on education and civic engagement.
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1. Understanding experiences of people living with dementia in their neighbourhoods (e.g. accessibility of built environments and public engagement tools, and wayfinding in suburban areas).
2. Aging in the built environment, housing and policy (e.g. examining age-friendly policies, tracing financialization and long-term care, seeking alternative housing/service models).
3. Understanding experiences and governance in sub/urban areas (e.g. examining the governance of COVID-19 in the peripheries of Milan and Toronto).
4. Accessibility and disability in planning (e.g. understanding how professional planners conceptualize and operationalize accessibility and disability in their daily work).
Biglieri uses innovative text, oral, photo and mobile-based methods, having designed and conducted research using traditional and go-along interviews, GPS tracking, travel diaries, experiential sampling methods, photovoice, content analysis, jurisdictional scans, focus groups, as well as scoping reviews. She is also interested in the intersections of disability studies and care geographies with urban planning and how insights from this kind of research can work toward more just cities.
Biglieri’s work has been featured in academic journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, Planning Practice & Research, Health & Place, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Urban Affairs, Cities & Health and Wellbeing, Space & Society, at international events such as the Association of Collegiate School of Planning, Urban Affairs and #A11yIRL Accessibility in Real Life conferences, in edited books, and in industry publications like Plan Canada, the Ontario Planning Journal (now Y Magazine) and Planning (the American Planning Association Magazine).
Her research on age-friendly policies and population dependency ratios with Maxwell Hartt has been added to the Canadian Library of Parliament and was shortlisted for an early career research award from the Royal Town Planning Institute in the UK. Biglieri’s work has been showcased on local and national radio and podcasts, like her research on the accessibility of the built environment for people living with dementia on CBC’s Spark and aging in suburbia on the Upstream Foundation’s podcast. She recently published a co-edited book with Maxwell Hartt, Mark Rosenberg, and Sarah Nelson called Aging People, Aging Places from Policy Press. It is a combination of original academic research, practitioner and community member vignettes from urban, suburban, rural, and Indigenous perspectives, capturing experiences from across Canada. She co-edited a special issue of Plan Canada (the Canadian Institute of Planners Magazine) on aging and serves as the chair for the community health track at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning conference.
Biglieri holds a PhD in Planning from the University of Waterloo, a Master of Planning from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Global Development Studies and Italian from Queen’s University. Most recently, she was a SSHRC Post Doctoral Fellow at York University. Biglieri has a professional background in planning practice as a land-use planning consultant (site and neighbourhood scales; public engagement; policy work) and serves the community on the Board of the Toronto Council on Aging, a non-profit focusing on education and civic engagement.
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