A Closer Look with Shruti Syal
Winner of the Gill-Chin Lim Best Dissertation in Planning Award

In recognition of the commitment of the late Gill-Chin Lim to the study of humanistic aspects of globalization, the ACSP Global Planners Educators Interest Group (GPEIG) established the "Gill-Chin Lim Award for the Best Dissertation on International Planning" in his name. This award is funded annually by the Consortium of Development Studies (CODS), which was founded by Lim in 1982. This award recognizes superior scholarship in a doctoral dissertation completed by a student enrolled in an ACSP-member school.

 The 2019 winner of the Gill-Chin Lim Best Dissertation in Planning Award is Shruti Syal, University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign.

 Shruti is an environmental planner and political ecologist studying integrated human-environment systems. Her research draws on the fields of planning, geography, and environmental science to examine the juncture between informality, institutions, and infrastructure. Her dissertation uncovers the ecological impact of stormwater drain-adjacent 'slums' in Delhi, India, revealing how institutions govern stakeholder behavior, determine access to waste-related infrastructure, and in turn influence city ecology. This work demonstrates that environmental remediation of the river Yamuna and informal settlement upgradation are interdependent goals, and encourages planners to reconceive their role as institution-builders and not just plan makers. She is currently working on multiple publications, and an ESRI Storymap to make this data publicly accessible.

Shruti has worked on urban biodiversity conservation, water quality, waste management, urban design, and regional analysis in India, Oman, Canada, and the US, and taught courses in urban ecology and sustainability. She holds a BSc in Biology from McGill University, an MSc in Environmental Studies from The Energy and Resources Institute, and a PhD in Regional Planning from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The award selection committee has this to say about Shruti's award winning work on his paper, A Socio-Ecological Systems Perspective on Planning for Informality: The Case of Delhi’s Drain-Adjacent Settlements:

"We considered the innovativeness of Shruti's scholarship and the creativity that she demonstrated in spanning disciplinary fields while taking on the issue of informality that planning struggles with across the global South. We were impressed by the methodological rigor and quality of her work, as well as its relevance and the applicability of conclusions. As importantly, her work speaks to and amplifies GPEIG’s core values of global cooperation, social responsibility, global ethics and diversity."

 Here's "A Closer Look" at Shruti:

Q: How did you feel when you learned you won? 
A: While the full range of emotions and theatrics might make for a great Pixar short, the overwhelming sense was one of gratitude. I have had a very supportive community at University of Illinois, and have learned a lot, but since my research was charting new territory in its choice of theoretical framework and methods, I was unsure of its reception. This work had been my sole priority for years, so the first thing I did after hearing this news was reach out to family and close friends. It takes effort, faith, and sacrifice on the part of many people to help achieve your goals.

Q: Who do you want to thank, if anyone? 
A: It took a village. Given the ACSP platform, there are a few scholars and institutions I really want to thank. Daniel Schneider, my advisor, who gave me the kind of autonomy, insight, support, and honesty that I hope to give my own advisees someday. My committee- Faranak Miraftab, Arnab Chakraborty, and Trevor Birkenholtz- whose insight, advice, and expectations significantly improved my proposal and dissertation. The Indian Institute for Human Settlements, whose mentorship seeded this research, and whose work on planning policy and practice instils a sense of pride. My peers- particularly Max Eisenburger, Sofia Sianis, Sang Lee, Natalie Prochaska, Juliana McMillan-Wilhoit, Dwayne Baker- for their friendship, mentorship, and most importantly, for affirming that dreaming big isn’t a problem; rather, being less ambitious is a disservice.

Q: What inspired you about this project?
A: Worldwide, (mega)cities are dismally polluted, their slums are denied adequate and accessible infrastructure and then labeled polluters and evicted on grounds of environmental degradation. To understand this integrated system, I decided to study drain-adjacent slums in Delhi as a Social-Ecological System. Working in the data deficient context of informality made generating and consolidating spatial, biophysical, and qualitative data exciting. As this database grew, so did the affirmation that looking at the system revealed much more than focusing on either the settlement or the drain. Bringing all this data together into the SES Framework from natural resource management was daunting, but also exhilarating, because it helped visualize the many interactions that make the interdependence between society and environment complex. Regulatory agencies and NGOs in Delhi are working on environmental restoration and settlement upgradation, but in isolation, and bringing these stakeholders and agendas together to understand their interdependence will improve the outcomes for both. This makes the future research emerging from this dissertation all the more exciting.

Q: What's next?
A: I hope to secure a postdoctoral fellowship or tenure-track position that would allow me to build on my dissertation research. In collaboration with colleagues here and in India, I want to build an action research study that brings together the regulatory agencies, NGOs and settlement community, examines their opinions and role(s) in defining/shaping these spaces, and uses discourse, and spatial, qualitative and quantitative data to cultivate a co-produced understanding of this landscape at multiple scales. By simultaneously working with economists on a cost-benefit analysis for scaled-up 'slum' upgradation, I hope this work can spur a participatory planning project linking slum upgradation to environmental remediation in the longer term. I also want to build on the use and adaptation of the SES Framework in research in the urban context.

Shruti will be presenting her paper at the ACSP Annual Conference, which will be held from October 24-27, in Greenville, South Carolina. Click here for more information about #ACSP2019.