Around the world, cities are racing to expand housing and infrastructure while facing the urgent challenge of staying within climate limits. Traditional approaches often fall short when timelines are tight and the stakes are high.
Join Professor Shoshanna Saxe for an eye-opening talk on how short timelines for tackling big problems constrain the tools we can use—and innovative strategies that help us rapidly build a better world. Using climate change as a central example, Professor Saxe will explore how her research group leverages material stock and flow analysis, embodied greenhouse gas emissions and cutting-edge approaches to address housing and infrastructure growth without overshooting climate targets.
Discover how bold thinking and data-driven solutions can transform the way we build for a sustainable future.
Join us on January 14, 2026, at our monthly Skule™ Lunch & Learn.
By registering for the Skule™ Lunch & Learn event, you could potentially earn Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits. CPDs are essential for professional engineers and limited license holders to renew their licenses annually through the PEO PEAK Program. If you're wondering whether this event offering qualifies you for CPD credits, click here to learn more.
About the speaker
Professor Shoshanna Saxe
Dr. Shoshanna Saxe is an Associate Professor in U of T’s Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Sustainable Infrastructure. She investigates the relationship between the infrastructure we build and the society we create to identify opportunities – and pathways – to better align infrastructure provision with sustainability. Her research focuses on two main questions: 1) What should we build? and 2) how should we build it?
Saxe is a former Action Canada fellow, sits on Waterfront Toronto’s Capital Peer Review Panel and Metrolinx Project Evaluation Advisory Panel. She was awarded the 2019 OPEA Engineering Medal – Young Engineer. Her research and commentary have been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Toronto Star, The Financial Post, and Wired, including “What We Really Need Are Good ‘Dumb’ Cities” (New York Times, July 2019).