The Transdisciplinary Research on Integrated Approaches to Sustainability (TRIAS) lab is led by Dr. Robert Newell, who is the Canada Research Chair (tier 2) in Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability at Royal Roads University. Research at TRIAS focuses on applying system thinking to identify relationships and tensions among strategies and approaches for addressing critical sustainability imperatives, particularly climate change and biodiversity but also including numerous other social, environmental, and economic sustainability imperatives. TRIAS engages in transdisciplinary and community-based participatory research, working with government and stakeholders to develop knowledge and tools for supporting local and regional planning and decision-making, such as systems maps, integrated models, and visualizations.
Systems map of the co-benefit and trade-off relationships in an integrated climate-biodiversity framework.
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Rob Newell (Principal Investigator) is the Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability at Royal Roads University, and a Research Associate at the Food and Agriculture Institute, University of the Fraser Valley. Rob’s research focuses on integrated planning, and he explores the use of systems thinking for supporting local and regional planning and decision-making. He develops tools for facilitating more inclusive, collaborative approaches to planning, and his research also involves using game development software to build realistic visualizations for participatory planning and community engagement. Newell also teaches courses on critical sustainability issues, particularly climate change and biodiversity loss, and approaches to sustainable development. |
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Colin Dring (Research Associate) holds over ten years of experience in the field of community food security, agricultural and food system planning, community development, and agri-food policy. Colin has worked with multiple levels of federal government including Environment Canada’s and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s as part of the Research Affiliate Program. Colin’s scholarly work addresses agricultural planning in contexts of diversity, complexity and unpredictability. His research examines the intersection of temporal, spatial, and social relational interactions that arise within agricultural and food systems. Dring develops approaches and practices for embedding equity and social justice into food and agricultural planning approaches and has published widely on food justice and sustainable food system education. |
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Mohaddese Ghadiri (Researcher) is a Ph.D candidate in Public Administration at the University of Victoria. She studied urban planning during her bachelor's and master's degrees. She has five years of professional and research experience in planning in Iran and worked as a research assistant at UVIC. Her areas of interest are sustainability, community development, community engagement, resilience, and food security. She is currently working as a researcher in the Climate-Biodiversity-Health (CBH) Nexus and Integrated Food Systems Planning project being conducted through the TRIAS lab. |
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Jofri Issac (Researcher) is an MA in Environment and Management student at Royal Roads University. He is a researcher in the Climate-Biodiversity-Health (CBH) Nexus and Integrated Food Systems Planning project being conducted through the TRIAS lab. Jofri holds five years of research experience, focusing on studying the impact of climate change on rural livelihoods in India. During this period, he worked in the remote regions of India, helping communities establish social entrepreneurship through community engagement and capacity building. His research interest lies in understanding the climate change impacts, adaptation and mitigation strategies at the community level, using a participatory approach and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping tool. |
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Elvia Willyono (Researcher) has a Master of Arts in Geography from the University of Victoria. She received a BA from the University of British Columbia in Environment and Sustainability. After several years of practical experience as a project manager in the field of GIS and remote sensing, she became interested in the role of 3D realistic geographic visualization and started her MA in 2020. Her thesis project explores the use of visualization in the management of protected areas and parks. |
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Carina Grajales Veerkamp (Researcher) is an MA student in Environment and Management at Royal Roads University, with her research focusing on community-based watershed management. She has six years of research experience in riparian ecosystems and participatory mapping in Mexico, and her research interests include community engagement, environmental justice, and biocultural diversity. She is currently a researcher in the TRIAS lab, who works on the Systems-based Visualization Tools for Integrated Watershed Management project. |
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Bin Xu (Researcher) is an MA student in Environment and Management at Royal Roads University. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture in China and his Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture in Louisiana. His main research areas are stormwater management and ecological landscape planning. He has worked on numerous landscape projects in Louisiana and Shanghai. Currently, he is working on the Systems-based Visualization Tools for Integrated Watershed Management project. His primary responsibilities include developing a VR tool and comparing it with conventional visualization tools to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of VR tools in watershed management. |
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Yu Xia (Researcher) is a recent graduate of the MA in Environment and Management program at Royal Roads University and holds a BS degree in Meteorology. Her previous work includes her role as a meteorological analyst at the China Meteorological Administration, and she has led public climate change outreach and urban resilience initiatives. Currently, Yu is developing a tool based on the research done in theClimate Justice and Public Transit project, which integrates climate action and social justice considerations into public transportation planning. The tool can be used to inform ways of advancing practical climate solutions and efforts toward improving social justice and equity outcomes through the redesign of local public transit networks. |