Hannah Teicher
Urban Planning and Design Thesis Coordinator, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning
Hannah M. Teicher is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Her research is broadly concerned with how adaptation to climate change is shaping urban transformations across scales. Her current research agenda centers on long-term planning for climate migration and collaborations that reach beyond the usual environmental suspects. She has published her research in journals including the Journal of the American Planning Association, Climate Policy, the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Urban Climate, and the Journal of Planning Education and Research.
In the climate migration domain, she is interested in how and why cities are identified as potential receiving communities and the implications for policy and planning. Further illuminating the emerging concept of receiving communities, she is analyzing corporate climate migration and how it is shaping geographies of opportunity for individuals and households in places perceived to be safer from climate impacts. In addition, she is seeking to deepen analysis of labor migration as a potential climate migration pathway, examining the relationship between climate impacts and temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector in British Columbia, Canada.
Hannah served in the leadership of the Climigration Network for five years and worked with a team there to guide development of Lead with Listening: a guidebook for community conversations on climate migration which is widely referenced by practitioners. Through project-based courses, she continues working with the Climigration Network. In a recent seminar, she worked with a team of students to analyze the intersection of the Indigenous land back movement and climate migration.
Prior to joining the GSD, Hannah was the Researcher in Residence for the Built Environment at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, a multi-university institute in British Columbia, Canada. Her previous experience includes practicing architecture with a focus on green residential and community projects at Shape Architecture in Vancouver, BC, applied research on EV charging infrastructure with the Transportation Infrastructure and Public Space Lab at the University of British Columbia, and teaching at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT, a Master of Architecture from UBC, and a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Swarthmore College.
