Wendy Sarkissian
Wendy Sarkissian is committed to finding spirited ways to nurture and support an engaged citizenry in the pursuit of sustainable futures. She holds a Masters of Arts in English literature, a Master of town planning and a PhD in environmental ethics. She has taught in schools of planning, landscape architecture and architecture internationally and lectures in ethics for the Planning Insitute of Australia.
As a consultant, Wendy has pioneered innovative planning and development approaches in a variety of contexts, earning 40 professional awards. She is co-author of the award-winning Housing as if People Mattered: Illustrated Site Design Guidelines for Medium-density Family Housing (1986) and the award-winning suite of five books: Community Participation in Practice (1994–2003).
Wendy is author of two previous books in the Earthscan Tools for Community Planning series: Kitchen Table Sustainability: Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability (2008) and SpeakOut: A Step-by-Step Guide to SpeakOuts and Community Workshops (2009).
Wendy’s doctorate explored ways of nurturing an ethic of caring for Nature in the education of town planners. This approach – focusing on the caring instinct – is a hallmark of her writing and speaking. Wendy’s career as consultant and academic provides firsthand knowledge of many contexts.
She is a Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia and Adjunct Professor in the School of Sustainable Development, Bond University, Queensland.
Dianna Hurford
MA(Planning) is a poet | planner.
Over the past 10 years, Dianna has worked in the field of affordable housing and homelessness in Vancouver, BC, Canada as both a consultant and as a research coordinator for a non-profit agency.
She holds a Master of Arts in planning from the School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts (with a double major in English literature and political science) from the University of Victoria. Dianna is also a graduate of the creative writing program, The Writer’s Studio (TWS) from Simon Fraser University and a member of em dash Vancouver writers collective.
Writing her masters thesis, Breaking the Line: Integrating Poetry, Polyphony and Planning Practice (2008), was a metamorphic process for Dianna. The work beckoned her from language paralysis, aligning the fragments of her professional and creative self. Her research ignited her further commitment to reflective and critical word play and poetic research for inclusive community engagement.
Her poetry has been published in emerge and she has participated in numerous literary readings, including the Vancouver International Writers & Readers Festival (2005).
Christine Wenman
BSc, MSc, is a community and natural resource planner.
While completing a BSc in environmental science at the University of Ottawa, she became increasingly aware of the gap between our substantive knowledge base and what is effectively implemented in policy. Her professional focus has since shifted to include governance, education and citizen engagement.
Facilitating a water and sanitation program with a non-profit organization in Mexico called Atzin further sensitized her to the strength and fragility of the human spirit, the intricate connections of environment, emotion and health and the exclusive societal forces subtly at play both locally and globally. The experience would lead her to a Masters from the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia.
Christine has also worked in multicultural planning and engagement, environmental education, non-profit housing and as a caregiver and server in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and overseas.
