Dr. Iain Douglas Stewart

During the 2022 heat wave in Europe, the dangers of urban heating became top news stories in Canada.  Journalists were asking important questions about the preparedness of Canadian cities for global warming, and whether changes to urban design can help to mitigate heat island effects.  I was invited to discuss these topics on the CTV National News, and on radio shows for CBC Morning in Ottawa, CHED Mid-Morning in Edmonton, and CBC Metro Morning in Toronto.

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In 2020, the International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) announced a new award to celebrate the achievements of early- and mid-career researchers.  The Timothy Oke Award for Original Research in the Field of Urban Climatology now recognises the contributions of a new generation of urban climatologists.  It goes without saying that I was deeply moved by the announcement in September 2021 that I was a recipient of a Timothy Oke Award.

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In 2014, I attended the United Nations World Urban Forum in Medellin, Colombia—the world’s most violent city only a few decades ago.  Medellin is now a model city for social and technological change, and was recently declared by Washington’s Urban Land Institute as “the world’s most innovative city.”  It is increasingly a safe and popular place to visit, ranked in the top-10 travel destinations (for 2015) by Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail.  Upon returning from Colombia, I wrote a travel story that gives a personal—and unexpected—account of life in one hillside barrio of Medellin.  It is titled “Medellin’s Comuna 13 is riding escalators to a better future,” and was published in The Globe and Mail on April 23, 2016. 

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During my doctoral studies at UBC (2004–12), I spent several months in Japan working with Prof. Sakakibara at Shinshu University (Nagano) and Prof. Yamashita at Tokyo Gakugei University.  Both professors are urban heat island experts and taught me a great deal about climate studies in their cities.  Here’s a story about my urban observations from Japan, published in the UBC Geographer.

© Copyright Iain D. Stewart 2023