Name
Hoda Pourpirali
Program
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Sustainability Theme
Research Supervisor
Dr. Bernard Momer
Hometown
Isfahan, Iran
Awards
- UBC Public Scholars Initiative Award
- UBC Okanagan Graduate Research Scholarship
- Graduate Student Travel Awards
Please describe how the awards have helped you academically and in your research endeavours.
These awards have had a meaningful impact on my academic journey and research in different ways. Beyond the financial support, they have given me opportunities to expand the scope and reach of my work through research activities, conferences, professional development, and connections with researchers and practitioners beyond my immediate academic environment.
The Public Scholars Initiative, in particular, has encouraged me to think beyond the traditional boundaries of a dissertation. It supports my engagement with residents, planners, community and policy partners, and creates opportunities to translate research findings into practical and accessible resources that can contribute to real conversations about housing and urban growth.
Receiving these awards has also been personally motivating. Having my work recognized has reassured me that the questions I am exploring are timely and relevant, and has encouraged me to be more ambitious about what the research can contribute.
Ultimately, this support is helping me become the kind of researcher I hope to be. I do not want my PhD to end with a dissertation sitting on a shelf. I want the knowledge generated through my research to travel to communities, planners, policymakers, researchers, and organizations that can use it, and to help strengthen the connection between academic research and planning practice.
Please describe your research. What inspires you about your research?
My research starts with a simple but increasingly important question in Canada: when cities build more housing, who benefits, and in what ways?
Across Canada, governments are responding to housing shortages and affordability challenges with major changes to zoning and housing policy. British Columbia is at the forefront of many of these changes, making this an important moment to understand what happens when far-reaching housing reforms move from legislation to real neighbourhoods.
My PhD examines this transition in Kelowna, one of Canada’s rapidly growing mid-sized cities. I evaluate how recent housing and land-use reforms are shaping the housing market, from housing supply, development activity, and affordability to broader neighbourhood and community outcomes. Rather than looking only at how much new housing is being built, I am interested in understanding what these policies are achieving in practice, how their impacts vary across the city, and what we can learn to support more effective and equitable implementation.
Using a mixed-methods approach, I combine housing and spatial data with resident surveys, interviews, and insights from planners and other professionals. This allows me to compare what the data tell us about changes in the housing market with how those changes are experienced by people and communities, and to better understand where and why the two may not always align.
Because many of these reforms are still new, my research provides an early post-implementation assessment. Spatial analysis helps identify where affordability pressures, redevelopment activity, and displacement vulnerability may be emerging, while there is still an opportunity to respond. I also aim to translate these findings into practical policy tools that can help municipalities monitor neighbourhood change, recognize early signals, and better align housing growth with affordability and equity goals.
Ultimately, what inspires me is the possibility of connecting research with action. Beyond asking how much housing gets built, I want to understand who benefits from urban change, where new pressures may emerge, and what we can learn to support better planning decisions. Building more housing matters, but what we build, where we build it, and for whom matters just as much.
Why did you decide to pursue a graduate degree?
I have always been fascinated by cities, why some neighbourhoods change quickly while others do not, why housing becomes unaffordable, and how decisions made in planning documents eventually shape people’s everyday lives.
Before beginning my PhD, I spent nearly a decade studying and working in urban and regional planning. Working as a planner gave me the opportunity to see the practical side of the profession: plans have to respond to regulations, political priorities, development pressures, economic realities, and, most importantly, the needs of people who experience their consequences.
Over time, that experience also made me more curious. I found myself wanting to go beyond asking, “What should we do?” and spend more time asking, “What actually happens after we do it, and who benefits and who may be left behind.”
That curiosity is what brought me back to academia.
Pursuing a PhD has allowed me to bring my professional experience into conversation with research, data, theory, and new methods. I did not want to leave planning practice behind; I wanted to understand it more deeply. My previous experience helps me recognize the realities and constraints planners face, while academic research gives me the tools to step back, test assumptions, examine outcomes, and sometimes challenge the way we have traditionally approached a problem. For me, the PhD is where those two worlds meet.
Why did you choose to come to UBC Okanagan and study?
UBC’s global reputation was certainly part of what drew me here, but UBC Okanagan offered something particularly important to me: the freedom to think across disciplines.
Urban problems rarely fit neatly inside one academic box. The interdisciplinary nature of my program has allowed me to build my research around the questions I genuinely wanted to answer rather than forcing those questions to fit within strict disciplinary boundaries. I have been able to learn from different fields, methods, and perspectives and bring them together in a way that reflects how cities actually work.
Kelowna has also turned out to be an incredible place to study urban change. It is a rapidly growing city where questions about housing, density, transportation, neighbourhood change, and affordability are unfolding in real time. In many ways, the city itself has become part of my classroom.
And, of course, there is the experience of living in beautiful British Columbia. The mountains, lakes, changing seasons, and access to nature make the Okanagan a pretty special place to live while doing a PhD. Having that balance, an intellectually exciting research environment and a beautiful place to call home, has made my experience at UBC Okanagan particularly meaningful.
Where do you hope your research will take you next?
I see myself as a practitioner-researcher, working at the intersection of research, planning, and public policy. I hope to work with municipalities, governments, research organizations, and communities on housing and urban policy, while continuing to publish, teach, and contribute to research. Rather than seeing research and practice as separate paths, I hope to strengthen the connection between them and contribute to more affordable, inclusive, and equitable cities.
Please share a little bit about yourself.
It is probably fair to say that I am a little immersed in planning, even outside of research! I love exploring cities, walking through different neighbourhoods, finding good coffee shops, and noticing how places change.
But I also love music. I sing in a choir and, although the PhD and a busy schedule have pushed my violin practice to the side, I still pick it up from time to time, partly to make sure I haven’t completely forgotten how to play!
And recently, much of my free time has been taken over by Milo, my very energetic kitten, who has strong opinions about when I should stop working and pay attention to him.
What advice do you have for new graduate students?
Don’t wait until you feel completely ready. Apply for opportunities, share your ideas, and connect with people beyond your immediate research circle. Your research will evolve; you don’t need everything figured out on day one. And as AI becomes part of research, use it without losing your own curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking. Technology can support our work, but asking meaningful questions and thinking independently remain essential.