Dr Priti Mohandas is an urban geographer and architectural designer whose work examines urban inequality, gender, and housing through trauma-informed approaches. Her research focuses on how people living within conditions of housing precarity navigate, inhabit, and contest urban space, with particular attention to citizenship, masculinities, violence and the politics of state improvement.

Priti is currently a researcher for Equitable Adaptation Pathways for Climate Mobilities (PATH), part of an international, community-led project across Nunavut, Kathmandu, Durban, and London. The London case study explores how diverse migrant groups experience housing precarity, climate vulnerability, and exclusion from formal support systems, and how these lived experiences can inform actionable metrics for climate adaptation.

Priti completed her PhD in Urban Geography at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis, "The Politics of Transformation: Improvement, Gender and Transitional Housing in Cape Town, South Africa", examines transitional housing in relation to gendered violence, masculinities, and post-apartheid state agendas for transformation. Her methodological practice often incorporates art, theatre, and storytelling as collaborative forms of inquiry. Alongside academic practice, Priti has worked extensively within grassroots organisations, NGO's and activist groups on issues concerning infrastructure, housing precarity and migration, as well as working for the UN Habitat Climate Change Team, (Global Solutions Division). Priti is also a co-founder of the Future Architects Front, advocating for fairer working conditions for architectural workers.

Research

• Urban inequality, housing precarity, and migrant housing experiences
• Gender, masculinities, and violence in urban space
• Decolonial and feminist research methodologies
• Trauma-informed and creative research methods (art, theatre, storytelling)
• Climate vulnerability, adaptation, and informal/formal support systems
• Transitional housing, state intervention, and the politics of “improvement”
• Activism, participatory practice, and the ethics of care in research and design