Richard Shaker PhD
Biography
I am an Associate Professor of Environmental and Urban Sustainability, arriving at the University in 2014. Prior, I held a tenure-track faculty position at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova investigating sustainable urbanization and landscape function. My current scientific research is in the realm of human-landscape coevolution and global ecology. As Homo sapiens continue to stretch the Earth beyond its biocapacity it is integral to elucidate their patterns and processes through space and time. My research group is actively investigating the interactions between natural and social systems for sustainable development, ecosystem management, global change resilience, and environmental planning purposes. Projects include modelling aquatic invasive species propagation, sustainable urban and landscape designs, rural economic development, flood risk mitigation, non-point source pollution modelling, evaluation and creation of sustainable development indices, climate change resilience, and regional and continental scale analysis of sustainable landscape change. Research locations include: Great Lakes Watersheds, Adirondack Park, Chicago, New York City, Toronto, Romania, Republic of Moldova, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. My future applied research looks at operationalizing sustainable development across spatial and temporal scales, while theoretically focusing at the nexus of evolutionary theory, learning and behaviour change, planning and policy responses. Lastly, to operationalize sustainable development research into applied practice, I founded the multidisciplinary design and planning firm GeoEco Design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2008, relocated it to Syracuse, New York in 2014 and Ridgeway Ontario in 2019.
Selected Publications
Shaker, R.R., Mackay, B.R. (2021). Hidden patterns of sustainable development in Asia with underlying global change correlations. Ecological Indicators, 131, 108227.
Shaker, R. R., Aversa, J., Papp, V., Serre, B. M., & Mackay, B. R. (2020). Showcasing Relationships between Neighborhood Design and Wellbeing Toronto Indicators. Sustainability, 12(3), 997.
Medland, S. J., Shaker, R. R., Forsythe, K. W., Mackay, B. R., & Rybarczyk, G. (2020). A multi-Criteria Wetland Suitability Index for Restoration across Ontario’s Mixedwood Plains. Sustainability, 12(23), 9953.
Vaz, E., Shaker, R. R., & Cusimano, M. D. (2020). A geographical exploration of environmental and land use characteristics of suicide in the greater Toronto area. Psychiatry research, 287, 112790.
Shaker, R. R., Altman, Y., Deng, C., Vaz, E., & Forsythe, K. W. (2019). Investigating urban heat island through spatial analysis of New York City streetscapes. Journal of cleaner production, 233, 972-992.
Shaker, R. R. (2018). A mega-index for the Americas and its underlying sustainable development correlations. Ecological indicators, 89, 466-479.
Shaker, R. R. (2018). Examining sustainable landscape function across the Republic of Moldova. Habitat International, 72, 77-91.
Brown, C., Shaker, R. R., & Das, R. (2018). A review of approaches for monitoring and evaluation of urban climate resilience initiatives. Environment, development and sustainability, 20(1), 23-40.
Shaker, R. R., Yakubov, A. D., Nick, S. M., Vennie‐Vollrath, E., Ehlinger, T. J., & Wayne Forsythe, K. (2017). Predicting aquatic invasion in Adirondack lakes: A spatial analysis of lake and landscape characteristics. Ecosphere, 8(3), e01723.
Shaker, R. R., & Sirodoev, I. G. (2016). Assessing sustainable development across Moldova using household and property composition indicators. Habitat International, 55, 192-204.
Shaker, R. R. (2015). The well-being of nations: an empirical assessment of sustainable urbanization for Europe. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 22(5), 375-387.
Shaker, R. R. (2015). The spatial distribution of development in Europe and its underlying sustainability correlations. Applied Geography, 63, 304-314.
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Professional Affiliations
Principal, GeoEco Design