Dr Julio Paulos (b. 1986, Luxembourg) is an interdisciplinary urban scholar working across research, policy and practice. His work sits at the intersection of urban studies, planning theory, urban anthropology, and science and technology studies, with a particular interest in how cities are governed and transformed amid technological, environmental, and political change.

As Associate Research Director at the ETH Future Cities Lab at ETH Zurich, he helps shape research strategy and coordinates interdisciplinary research across fields, geographies, and sectors. His work at FCL focuses on bringing different forms of urban expertise into conversation and developing integrated perspectives on the challenges of living on a rapidly urbanising planet. More broadly, his research examines the knowledge, technologies, institutions, and political processes through which urban futures are produced and contested. He is particularly interested in questions of expertise and governance, and in who gets to imagine, negotiate, and shape urban transformation.

Before joining FCL, Julio was a postdoctoral researcher at the Université de Lausanne from 2020 to 2023 and a researcher at ETH Zurich from 2014 to 2018. He has also been a visiting fellow at the Munich Center for Technology in Society at the Technical University of Munich and an invited researcher at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation at Mines ParisTech.

Julio holds a PhD in Urban Anthropology from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany), an MSc in Urban Studies from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), and a BA in Human Geography from the Université de Strasbourg (France). This interdisciplinary trajectory continues to inform his approach to contemporary urban challenges, combining critical social-scientific inquiry with an engagement in the practical and political questions surrounding the future of cities.

jøn kent is an actor, activist, and community developer dedicated to advancing sustainability, environmental justice, and community empowerment. As Co-Founder of Sanctuary Farms and Founder of Sacred Spaces, he works on Detroit’s eastside to promote food sovereignty, circular economies, and community-led green spaces. A lifelong SAG-AFTRA member, Jon brings the empathy of the arts into his work as a planner and organizer, informed by his studies at UCLA and the University of Michigan. His work centers deep ecology and land reparative justice, with a vision for resilient, equitable cities where land, people, and community can thrive together.

Biba Bell is a writer, dancer, and choreographer based in Detroit. Her choreographic work, often set in unconventional venues, focuses on post-Anthropocentric performance, site-specificity, arts activism, domesticity, artistic labor, and dance in the museum. She was a Kresge Arts in Detroit Live Arts Fellow and a DAAD guest professor of Experimental Performance in Germany. Bell earned her PhD in Performance Studies from New York University and is an Associate Professor of Dance at Wayne State University. Her current research project investigates protest and abolition ecologies as they intersect forest defense and conservation through the lens of what she theorizes as “epiphytic choreographies.”

Karin Hilfiker is a Swiss Forestry Engineer connecting forests and society – lively and impactful. As owner of Waldstudio and managing director of ArboCityNet building bridges between authorities, private sector and research in forestry, urban forestry and biodiversity. Using forests as space for reflection and source of inspiration we connect teams with nature for transformative change – with Waldcoaching and the GRITworkshop. Karin lives close to Berne, Switzerland, holds a MAS in transcultural communication and leadership and worked for public and private sector in Switzerland, Bolivia, Guinea, Namibia and Vietnam