Theo Lim

theo.lim@ubc.ca

West Mall Annex

231 - 1933 West Mall

Vancouver, BC

V6T 1Z2

CANADA

Welcome! I am an Associate Professor in University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. Planning is a subset of public policy-making that is sensitive to matters of space, place, and process. Planners work closely with specific communities to actively incorporate a plurality of voices into public decision-making, and there is a strong normative orientation to both professional and academic planning work, including social justice and socio-environmental sustainability, motivating how we translate knowledge into action.

Within this field, my research and teaching expertise include:

Climate adaptation in cities, and building community resilience to the effects of climate change. My experience in this area spans state-led policy to grassroots participatory action research. An archive of a participatory action research project on heat resilience that involved planning with youth, arts, sprituality, and technology can be found here.
The use of scientific and technical data in environmental decision-making contexts. My experience in this area includes how computational models are developed and used in watershed-management decisions in the Chesapeake Bay (eastern United States), and how how different types of knowlede may be combined to improve social and environmental outcomes.

At UBC, I teach classes related to and urban analytics, policy-relevant research design, and community engagement.

I am the Chair of the PhD Program in Planning at SCARP.

I am also the Social Media Editor of the journal Planning Theory and Practice.

My current CV can be found here .

selected publications

Trauma as Condition and Trauma as Claim: Advancing the Concept of Trauma in Planning Theory and Practice

Lim, Theodore C., Niamke, Stephen, Knight, Decca, Stephens, Bradley, and Wagle, Paroma

Planning Theory & Practice 2026

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This paper articulates a framework for considering the relevance of trauma in planning. Planners may encounter trauma as either a social-psychological condition or as a political claim, with distinct emphases on process or outcome, and in psychic or public realms. We apply the theoretical framework to a case in a city in the US South to empirically show how trauma-informed practice principles can paradoxically both be healing and retraumatizing for communities that seek to reform mainstream planning institutions. Our case suggests differentiating goals of personal healing and systemic justice to distinguish strategies of trauma as condition versus trauma as claim.
A conceptual framework for knowledge integration in cross-disciplinary collaborations

Punjabi, Shruti, Misra, Shalini, Rippy, Megan A., Grant, Stanley B., Galappaththi, Eranga, Lim, Theodore, and Birkland, Thomas A.

Environmental Science & Policy 2025

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This paper synthesizes three domains of literature to develop a conceptual framework for knowledge integration in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral collaborations: (1) studies of inter- and transdisciplinarity, (2) studies of knowledge co-production in sustainability research, and (3) studies focusing on factors influencing knowledge integration in the Science of Team Science field. Combining a scoping review methodology with a cited reference search approach, we identify eight dimensions of knowledge integration: types of knowledge integrated, competencies and education required to practice knowledge integration, organizational structure, types of actor involvement, stages of collaboration, contextual factors, processes and mechanisms of knowledge integration, and types of knowledge integration outcomes. We structure these dimensions across four interconnected components of collaboration: knowledge gathering (inputs), structural dynamics and collaborative dynamics (processes), and integrative outcomes (outputs). We identify the different types of knowledge mobilized in cross-disciplinary collaborations – epistemic, experiential, contextual, cultural, applied, specialized, knowledge for systemic change, and normative knowledge - and link them to the structural features (e.g., team composition, governance) and collaborative dynamics (e.g., stakeholder engagement, interaction frequency, and roles) of cross-disciplinary teams that influence the processes and outcomes of knowledge integration. This framework is intended to function as a heuristic to prompt teams to adapt it to specific contexts, projects, and team configurations. It can also be used a scaffold for designing and evaluating knowledge integration efforts in diverse collaborative settings.
Necessary Considerations When Framing Urban Heat Resilience as an Infrastructure Issue

Lim, Theodore C.

Journal of the American Planning Association 2024

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Conceptualizing urban heat resilience as an infrastructure problem emphasizes the urgency with which we must adapt to global climate change, but also risks ignoring the continued marginalization that vulnerable populations experience as a result of infrastructure decisions. In this Viewpoint, I use my experience with participatory action research (PAR) in building urban heat resilience to show the ways in which an infrastructure framing presents opportunities, and the ways in which planners a) need to be aware of infrastructure as socio-technical systems and b) recognize spatial networks of social capital to appropriately approach interventions that benefit those most likely to be adversely affected by rising temperatures in cities.
Recognizing political influences in participatory social-ecological systems modeling

Lim, Theodore C., Glynn, Pierre D., Shenk, Gary W., Bitterman, Patrick, Guillaume, Joseph H.W., Little, John C, and D.G., Webster

Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling 2023

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Stakeholder participation in social-ecological systems (SES) modeling is increasingly considered a desirable way to elicit diverse sources of knowledge about SES behavior and to promote inclusive decision-making in SES. Understanding how participatory modeling processes function in the context of long-term adaptive management of SES may allow for better design of participatory processes to achieve the intended outcomes of inclusionary knowledge, representativeness, and social learning, while avoiding unintended outcomes. Long-term adaptive management contexts often include political influences – attempts to shift or preserve power structures and authority, and efforts to represent the political and economic interests of stakeholders – in the computer models that are used to shape policy making and implementation. In this research, we examine a period that included a major transition in the watershed model used for management of the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. The Chesapeake Bay watershed model has been in development since the 1980s, and is considered by many to be an exemplary case of participatory modeling. We use documentary analysis and interviews with participants involved in the model application and development transition to reveal a variety of ways in which participatory modeling may be subject to different kinds of political influences, some of which resulted in unintended outcomes, including: perceptions of difficulty updating the model in substantive ways, “gaming” of the model/participatory process by stakeholders, and increasing resistance against considering uncertainty in the system not captured by the model. This research suggests unintended or negative outcomes may be associated with both participatory decision-making and stakeholder learning even though they are so often touted as the benefits of participatory modeling. We end with a hypothesis that further development of a theory of computer model governance to bridge model impact and broader theories of environmental governance at the science-policy interface may result in improved SES modeling outcomes.
Community-engaged heat resilience planning: Lessons from a youth smart city STEM program

Lim, Theodore C., Wilson, Bev, Grohs, Jacob R., and J., Pingel Thomas

Landscape and Urban Planning 2022

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While recognition of the dangers of extreme heat in cities continues to grow, heat resilience remains a relatively new area of urban planning. One barrier to the creation and successful implementation of neighborhood-scale heat resilience plans has been a lack of reliable strategies for resident engagement. In this research, the authors designed a two-week summer STEM module for youth ages 12 to 14 in Roanoke, Virginia in the Southeastern United States. Participants collected and analyzed temperature and thermal comfort data of varying types, including from infrared thermal cameras and point sensors, handheld weather sensors, drones, and satellites, vehicle traverses, and student peer interviews. Based on primary data gathered during the program, we offer insights that may assist planners seeking to engage residents in neighborhood-scale heat resilience planning efforts. These lessons include recognizing: (1) the problem of heat in neighborhoods and the social justice aspects of heat distribution may not be immediately apparent to residents; (2) a need to shift perceived responsibility of heat exposure from the personal and home-based to include the social and landscape-based; (3) the inextricability of solutions for thermal comfort from general issues of safety and comfort in neighborhoods; and (4) that smart city technologies and high resolution data are helpful “hooks” to engagement, but may be insufficient for shifting perception of heat as something that can be mitigated through decisions about the built environment.