People

Nidhi Subramanyam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography & Planning. Subramanyam’s ongoing research investigates just approaches to plan and govern water and wastewater infrastructures in the face of rapid urbanization and the growing impacts of climate change. Her most recent projects have focused on planning, governance, and water-sanitation infrastructures in small cities and geographies undergoing rural-urban transitions in India. 

She is also involved in collaborative research projects on secondary city governance in South Africa and the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on socially marginalized migrant workers in India. Subramanyam’s work on urban water governance, climate change adaptation, land dispossession, and rural-urban transitions has appeared in the journals Environment and Planning C: Politics & Space, Water International, and Water Policy. 

At the University of Toronto, Subramanyam is excited to work with students and colleagues on projects that critically examine the planning of climate-resilient infrastructures and the use of sustainability indicators in urban planning to advance ideas and practices that produce just and equitable cities.

Nidhi Subramanyam grew up in Mumbai, India. She obtained her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Mumbai in 2010. Following a brief stint as a professional architect, Subramanyam joined the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 2012, where she earned a Master of Regional Planning in 2014.  Subramanyam earned a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University in 2021