Panelists profiles

Amaya CelayaUrban Resilience Specialist, City Resilience Profiling Programme, UN-Habitat

Amaya Celaya is an Architect, Urban Designer and Master NOHA - International Cooperation and Humanitarian Action-. Her research focuses around the issues of resilience, sustainability, accountability, networking, urban planning, architecture, knowledge, among others. She is a member of the Expert European Commission Programme Horizon 2020 since 2015. Other engagements and acknowledgements include: Best master thesis NOHA Deusto 2013-14, SYLFF Fellow 2014, LEED Green Associate 2012, Inviting lecturer at UNESCO CHAIR UPV - Bilbao -, and ELISAVA-POMPEU I FABRA - Barcelona - since 2011, Project manager of Brand-quality certified ISO 9001 - and ECODESIGN - ISO 14006 - since 2011, Eco-design consultant at BCD -, ICAEN and Construction 21 (Spain) since 2010, and Co-founder of abar architects 2005.  

Ana Isabel Rodríguez BasantaDirector of Prevention Services in the Barcelona City Council, Barcelona City Council

Ana Isabel Rodríguez Basanta has a law degree and two master degrees in sociology, one of them in methodology and social research technics. She has participated in several research projects related to security matters as drug traffics, violence in public spaces, or police organization, among others. She has also lead several intelligence projects to improve administrative data sources and reporting services.

Changhee LeeTechnology Innovations Expert, UN HABITAT

Changhee Lee is a Technology Innovations Expert at UN HABITAT. She joined the UN HABITAT Safer Cities Programme in 2016 to improve safety in cities through innovative ways. Currently she oversees the Safer Cities 2.0 project as a paradigm shifting tool to implement SDGs goal 11 and NUA 103.

Before joining UN HABITAT, she served in various divisions at the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), Republic of Korea, focusing on Smart Cities and Urban Safety areas. She has been involved in GIS for planning and implementing Spatial Data Warehouse, the Road Management System connected to the Safety Data Base of the National Government, Underground Water Pipe Line Mapping System, Water & Swage Billing System development, Women Safety System, etc. Recently, she was the ICT Budget Evaluation Team Leader at SMG.

Carmen Sánchez-Miranda GallegoHead of UN-Habitat Office in Spain

Carmen Sánchez-Miranda Gallego has over 18 years of experience in the field of development for cooperation, of which ten have been dedicated to programmes management in Latin America. Before joining UN-Habitat in 2012, she worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ecuador, the Spanish Agency for Multilateral Cooperation (AECID), several private foundations such as the Club of Madrid, and various international consulting institutions. She has specialized in development, local governance and multilateralism. She has published several articles and reports on the analysis of development and has taught and lectured in several universities in Spain. She holds a bachelor in Economics from the University of Salamanca, a Master’s Degree in Political Science from FLACSO and a Gender Studies degree from the University Rafael Landivar.

David Buil Gil Researcher at University of Manchester

David Buil Gil is currently undertaking his doctoral thesis at the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Manchester, funded by the University Presidential Doctoral Scholar Award. He is also a teaching assistant at the institution. His PhD research is based on the application of small area estimation techniques for the spatial study of emotions and attitudes towards crime at the low area level. He is also an associate researcher at the Criminal Research Center at Miguel Hernandez University. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Criminology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Master's Degree in Crime Analysis and Prevention from the Universidad Miguel Hernández.

Elizabeth JOHNSTONEFUS Executive Director

Elizabeth Johnston is responsible for the strategy and development of Efus, in liaison with the Executive Committee, as well as overall management. She is also Executive Director of the French Forum for Urban Security since February 2016. In addition, she is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Parliament of Mayors and an official associate of the University of Liege (Belgium). Prior to this, and after beginning her career at a French local authority, Elizabeth Johnston served as Programme Director at the French-American Foundation, and as Violence Prevention Expert at the World Bank, in Washington. She holds degrees in Law from Assas University (France), in Political Science from Yale University (United-States) and in Public Policy from Marne-La-Vallée University (France).

Esteban LeonChief Technical Advisor, City Resilience Profiling Programme, UN-HABITAT

Esteban Leon is the Chief Technical Advisor of the City Resilience Profiling Programme of UN-Habitat. He has a background in economics, finance, shelter/housing and settlements program design and management, capacity building, as well as building construction and reconstruction projects in post-crisis situations and urban resilience building. He has worked in the private sector (banking, microcredit and microfinance projects in Argentina and Bolivia), NGOs (slum upgrading, building constructions and reconstruction programmes in Bolivia and Kenya) and has been working for UN-Habitat since 2002.

Esteban is the UN-Habitat representative for the Humanitarian Inter-Agency Standing Committee IASC, Chair of the IASC Reference Group on Meeting Humanitarian Challenges in Urban Areas (MHCUA), Chair of the Medellin Collaboration for Urban Resilience, the UN-Habitat focal point for the International Recovery Platform, the Inter-Agency Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), and the Post Conflict Needs Assessment (PCNA). He is the Global Programme Manager of the “Making cities sustainable and resilient: Implementing the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030 at the local level.

Francesc VarelaCEO of Nexus Geographics

Francesc Varela has over 20 years of experience leading GIS Projects in areas like urban mobilty, safety and emergencies. He started his career as a GIS Specialyst in an international project in El Salvador, financed by the IDB, in 1996. In Nexus Geographics he has leaded projects like GEOSATI, the GIS for the call center of RACC (Real Automòbil Club de Catalunya), SIGME, the GIS of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the catalan police, or MOU-TE the Multimodal Journey Planner for the catalan government. Mr. Varela holds a PDG (General Management Program) from IESE and a Human Geography Degree from the UdL, and is co-founder and co-owner of Nexus Geographics.

Josep Maria LahosaCitizen Security Expert. Former Director of Barcelona City Council Prevention Services,

During his mandate as Director of Prevention Services, he promoted a strategy to improve the knowledge of the reality of security, by means of both the analysis of statistical data and the conduct of the victimization survey and research of security on public space. He also led the process of recognition and normalization of the so-called "Latin bands" in the city. He has participated as professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC).

Mr. Lahosa is member of the international editorial board of URVIO, Latin American citizen security magazine, and of the organizing committees of the international conferences of prevention of the urban insecurity of Barcelona (1987); Montreal (1989); Paris (1991); Barcelona (1997), Naples (1999) and Zaragoza (2006). As an expert of the Council of Europe, he has participated in missions to Moldova and Bulgaria to evaluate the juvenile justice system. On June 26, after more than 38 to the service of local administrations, he left the post of Director of Prevention Services in the city of Barcelona.

Juma AssiagoUN-HABITAT’s Safer Cities Programme Coordinator

Mr. Assiago, an Urbanist and Social Scientist, is the Global Coordinator of the Safer Cities Programme at UN-Habitat.  He has a Bachelor of Science degree (United States International University) and a Masters of Science degree in Sustainable Urban Development (Oxford University, United Kingdom).  He joined UN-Habitat in October 1999 and has an 18 year international working experience providing technical support to both national and local governments on the development and implementation of city crime prevention and urban safety strategies. Part of his achievements has been the development of the Global Network on Safer Cities (GNSC) that has organised several technical working groups including on the confluence of safety and peacebuilding in Geneva. He has built a credible professional network and working experience, built managerial capabilities, and political contacts with UN partners, central governments and local authorities as well as funding partner institutions and international support agencies.

The non-traditional role of crime and violence prevention within an urban constituency has provided many challenges in anchoring city crime prevention strategies in local governments. This has stood as an opportunity for Mr. Assiago to be part of innovative social thinking in city build to continuously shape a new strategic approach for sustainable urban development  from a perspective of the urban management and governance of safety. This includes on adaptation of safety tools to technological innovations such as the safety audit tool. In his various responsibilities, he has travelled extensively across Africa, the Americas, Europe and Asia and presented papers in various global, regional, national and city conferences on crime prevention, as well as at various prestigious universities including Harvard University John F Kennedy School in the US(2008), Oxford University in the UK (2013), MonterreyTech in Mexico, Institute of Social Studies in the Hague Netherlands (2009), among others.  He has also contributed to various publications including on Security and Segregation in West African Cities (IFRA), Security and Ethical Perspective of Public Safety (Mexico) and on Cities and Security (UAH, Santiago de Chile). He lately was involved in

convening the UN Task Team that developed the Issue Paper on Safer Cities for the Habitat III process.

Junyoung ChoiSpatial Big Data Analyst, Korea Land and Housing corporation

Doctor Junyoung Choi is a spatial big data analyst and a coordinator of government cooperation project between MOLIT, Korea and DNP, Colombia. He started his career at Seoul Institute of Urban Information Research Center and Public Transportation Reform Research Center from 2001 to 2003, and worked at KLID (Korea Local Information research and Development Institute) until 2006. Since 2006, he has participated in national projects and researches on urban development, housing statistics, spatial data and related spatial policy support systems of MOLIT and Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH).

He is a charter member of OSGeo (Open Source Geospatial Foundation) and is currently participating in seminar, education and capacity building programs for foreign government officials related to national urban and housing information systems, smart city, spatial policy based on data analytics. He holds a master's and Ph.D. degree in urban planning from Hanyang University.

Marta Murrià SangenísHead of urban safety studies at Barcelona Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies

Marta Murrià Sangenís is currently head of urban safety studies at the Barcelona Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies (IERMB). She is also adjunct lecturer at the University of Barcelona. Her trajectory has been focused on the study of urban safety, particularly in the context of Barcelona and its metropolitan area. She has participated in the design and analyses of the Barcelona Victimization Survey (EVB) and the Catalan Crime Victimization Survey (ESPC). Marta also collaborates regularly with the Barcelona city council on the design, analysis and evaluation of urban safety policies through the Urban Safety Plan of this city. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Sociology from the University of Barcelona (UB), and a Master’s Degree in Criminology, Criminal Policy and Security also from the UB.

Miquel Robles ArboixUrban Risk and Conflict Prevention Expert, UN HABITAT

Miquel Robles Arboix is a geographer specialized in sustainable development, urban risk, conflict prevention and urban resilience. Since September 2016 he serves at UN HABITAT Safer Cities Programme, coordinating the Global Network on Safer Cities flagship project: The City Labs on Safer Cities. The project aims to be a collegial forum for citizens’ security and social and institutional prevention of crime and violence, conformed by public representatives, technicians and civil

society and represented through the academia and local institutes. Previously, he served at the Technical Service of Insular Plans at Tenerife Island public administration in Canaries (Spain). He holds a BA in Geography and Land Management (2009-2014) from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife Island (Canary Islands) and a M.Sc. in International Studies from the University of Barcelona.

Sergi Valera PertegàsProfessor at University of Barcelona, Department of Social Psychology and Quantitative Psychology

Sergi Valera teaches Applied Social Psychology and Environmental Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona. He is professor and coordinator of the postgraduate course Analysis and Social and Environmental Intervention, at University of Barcelona and Autonomous University of Barcelona. He teaches in several masters, among which he emphasizes the Master in Psychosocial Intervention and the Master in Urban Design. He is also professor of the PhD Program in Architecture of the National University of the Coast in Santa Fe, Argentina and Visiting Professor in the University of Valparaíso, Chile. He has published numerous texts and articles on the relationship between citizens and environment, urban social identity, space symbolism, well-being and quality of life, as well as subjective aspects of the perception of insecurity in the public space. He holds a Doctorate in Psychology and a Master in Environmental Intervention.