Our team

Professor Peter Poulet

Professor Peter Poulet is the founding Director of the Cities Institute. With a diverse background that encompasses architecture, visual arts and civic planning, he brings a unique blend of industry experience, government expertise, academic insight and creative vision to his role.

Peter currently holds the position of Central City District Commissioner for the Greater Cities Commission. Prior to this, he served as the NSW Government Architect from 2012 to 2018.  

Dillon Kombumerri

Dillon Kombumerri is a Professor of Practice and Associate Director First Nations at the Cities Institute. He is also Principal Architect for the Government Architect NSW and has over 30 years of experience bringing his own unique indigenous perspective to re-imaging the built environment. During this time, Dillon has also been teaching and lecturing in many national and international forums to shine a light on the often-hidden value of indigenous knowledge and how it can positively influence private and public agencies to deliver better outcomes for the built environment.

Dillon has delivered award winning projects for multiple government clients including health, justice, education, family and community services. His most recent project launched in 2023 is the “Connecting with Country Framework” to facilitate an understanding and respect for the value of Aboriginal knowledge in the design and planning of places.”

Hannah Bolito

Hannah Bolitho is Manager of Strategy & Business at the Cities Institute. Trained as an architect and urban designer, she brings a wealth of experience in public policy and planning. Hannah has spent the past eight years focused on strategic planning policy for the City of Sydney. Prior to that, she was a key team member at the NSW Government Architect’s Office.

Expanding her reach beyond her primary responsibilities, Hannah also holds the position of Oceania Regional Hub Lead for the Accelerating City Equity Project, affiliated with the International Society for Urban Health.

Sarah Ford

Sarah Ford is Business Administrator for the Cities Institute. She has been working at the UNSW for over 20 years. She is also currently an Administrative Officer at the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity.

Samantha Rich

Samantha Rich is a First Nations Senior Project Officer at the Cities Institute. She is a Wiradjuri woman, a Graduate of Architecture and she is dedicated to embedding First Nations worldview into the design of buildings and the broader built environment. Her experience working across diverse typologies of health, housing, urban design, commercial, infrastructure, and Designing for Country has developed her design skills into creating culturally sensitive design and engaging authentically with First Nations Communities. Samantha is deeply interested in the intersections of social and cultural factors that can provide breadth and depth to these places to make them uniquely embedded in the characteristics and story of place.

Scientia Fellow Dr Jinhee Kim

Dr Jinhee Kim is Scientia Fellow at the Cities Institute. Her research interests include understanding the complexities of urban health paradigms relevant to addressing the spatial impacts of urban environments on human health. She applies her research findings in developing real-world transdisciplinary action that engages stakeholders from academic and non-academic backgrounds and across various disciplines and sectors. Prior to joining UNSW, she has worked in all levels of government with a focus on healthy cities and health impact assessment as tools to prioritise health equity in urban policies. 

Jinhee serves as Editor-in-Chief of Urban Health Review, a peer-reviewed journal for the Korean Academy of Urban Health, and as a member of the Academic Committee for the Alliance for Healthy Cities.

Evelyne de Leeuw

Evelyne de Leeuw is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Cities Institute. She is a professor of public health at the School of Public Health at the University of Montreal (ESPUM) where she holds a ‘Canada Excellence in Research Chair’ in One Urban Health. She is also a professor of urban health and policy at UNSW Sydney. Her background is in public health and health promotion, cities, and health political science. She has been part of the European Healthy Cities movement since its launch in 1986. She has been editor for the journal Health Promotion International until 2023 and is an editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Global Public Health. Her current innovation efforts aim at the integration of (Indigenous) cosmology and spirituality, One Health, and Healthy Cities. Evelyne also currently acts as Vice-President of Scientific Affairs of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education, IUHPE. She is proud to have enabled Indigenous Voices and governance in some cutting-edge (multi-million dollar…) research projects in/with Eora, Wiradjuri, Yuwaalaraay, Yuin, and Gamilaraay Nations. She has published and edited eight scholarly books, over 300 peer reviewed papers and three novels.

Scientia Fellow Dr Naama Blatman

Dr Naama Blatman is a Scientia Fellow at the Cities Institute. She is an urban and political geographer whose research spans Israel/Palestine and Australia. She applies a comparative lens and collaborative research practice with Indigenous communities to interrogate the histories, lived realities and futures in-the-making of settler colonial cities. Naama examines how cities are planned and re/developed in such sites as housing, prisons, and railways, considering enduring yet dynamic structures of settler colonial and Indigenous urbanisms. 

Naama is an alumnus of the Urban Studies Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She previously held the positions at Western Sydney University and at The University of Sydney. Prior to completing her PhD, she worked for several years in Human Rights and Palestinian non-for-profit organisations in Israel.