KIMBERLY NORONHA

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in City and Regional Planning at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, with 15+ years of experience transforming urban development policy across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. My research examines how informal coastal communities navigate state relationships and climate change, with current fieldwork in urban coastal fisher communities in Accra, Ghana and Kochi, India.

Research Focus: I use innovative visual ethnography and photovoice methods to understand how marginalised communities—particularly urban fishers—experience informality, spatial inequality, and environmental vulnerability. My work bridges urban planning, political economy, and marine spatial planning to inform more inclusive policies for rapidly urbanising coastal cities of the Global South.

Policy Impact: I have worked extensively on various urban issues, including urbanisation policy, poverty, livelihoods, education, and water and sanitation. I collaborated with governments, international development institutions, NGOs, implementing agencies, and research institutes to formulate policies, coordinate programs, and conduct research. 

I have a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPhil in African Studies from the University of Delhi, an MSc in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

RECENT WORK

June 2026 — New article in Urban Political Ecology: “The Canary in the Coal Mine” examines how Kochi’s urban fisher communities articulate climate change through the concept of sea attacks, and how scientific frameworks structurally exclude the environmental knowledge of the communities most affected by coastal hazards. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with women from fisher communities (2020–2024) and a systematic review of Indian coastal hazard literature, the paper identifies five mechanisms through which epistemic exclusion operates — from the complete erasure of community-observed events to the gendered invisibility of women’s environmental expertise. [Read the article →]