Staff and collaborators from a wide variety of backgrounds contribute to the Institute’s work. From faculty to visiting positions to post-docs to graduate students to undergraduates, the MPI brings together top talent in its efforts to research, educate, and advise.

Richard Florida

Director

Richard is a professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining the Rotman School, he taught for nearly two decades at Carnegie Mellon University and has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. His books include three best sellers: The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2002), The Flight of the Creative Class (Harper Collins, 2005), and his newest book, Who’s Your City (Basic Books).

Read more about Richard

James Milway

Executive Director

Jim brings more than thirty years of business and public policy experience to the Institute. He began his career in marketing management with General Foods (now Kraft) and Unilever. For most of his career he has consulted to senior decision makers in areas of business strategy as a partner in The Canada Consulting Group and The Boston Consulting Group, and in his own firm. Along the way, Jim served as CEO of a specialized insurance firm. In his role as Executive Director of the MPI’s partner organization, the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, Jim has advised local cluster initiatives in food processing, resource products, and financial services. He has advised the Government of Ontario on tax policy, post-secondary education, and innovation strategies. Federally, he has assessed public policy in the areas of innovation strategy, small and medium enterprises, and tourism policy. Jim graduated from the University of Toronto, St Michael’s College with a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and the University of Western Ontario with an MBA (Dean’s List).

Read more about James

Kevin Stolarick

Research Director

Kevin has held faculty positions at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and for over a decade worked with technology in the insurance industry as a manager of strategic projects. His research interests include the relationship between firm performance and information technology and the impacts of technology, tolerance, talent, and quality of place on regional growth and prosperity.

Read more about Kevin

Charlotta Mellander

Visiting Faculty

Charlotta Mellander is the research director at the Prosperity Institute of Scandinavia and close collaborator with Professor Richard Florida and Dr. Kevin Stolarick at the Martin Prosperity Institute in Toronto. Charlotta earned a Ph.D. in economics at Jönköping International Business School. Her dissertation examines regional attractiveness, the urbanization process, the importance of cities, and the relationship between the service sector and the market.

Read more about Charlotta

Kimberly Ryan

Assistant to the Institute
Phone: (416) 673-8580

Kimberly manages the MPI office, which includes supporting the management team, interacting with clients, planning events and handling media relations. She has extensive experience in administration and office management, especially within government. She has held senior administrative positions at the municipal and regional levels, having served as an assistant to Former Metro Chairman Alan Tonks, Former City of Toronto Deputy Mayor Case Ootes, and a number of city councillors. In her personal time, Kim has helped organize and volunteered on numerous municipal and provincial election campaigns, and she is currently training for her fourth marathon.

Read more about Kimberly

Kimberly Silk

Data Librarian

Kim is the MPI’s data librarian, and is responsible for the creation and continuous improvement of our leading edge data library, social knowledge network and physical collection, which supports our research and that of our partner organizations.

Kim has a passion for digital collections and online communities, and loves to explore how technology can facilitate collaboration and improve access to and distribution of information. Prior to joining the MPI, Kim was self-employed as a digital media library consultant serving clients in the corporate, academic, government and non-profit sectors. She has also held corporate positions at Rogers New Media and Discovery Channel Canada.

Read more about Kimberly

Marisol D’Andrea

Assistant to the Director
Phone: (416) 673-8580

As Assistant to the Director, Marisol manages Richard Florida’s calendar, plans events, and handles media relations. Marisol brings with her a valuable array of communication skills and international portfolio experience from her years at the University of Toronto’s University Relations office. She holds an undergraduate degree from the Rotman School of Management, and an M.Ed. in International Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her central research interest is in arts-informed research. Marisol is also a visual artist who paints with acrylics.

Read more about Marisol

Brian Hracs

Post-Doctoral Fellow

As an economic geographer, Brian’s research interests concern several facets of the creative economy: labour conditions, talent flows, market dynamics and digitization. His research at the MPI falls into two broad categories. The music and the entertainment economy project is a scholarly examination of the economic, geographic, and social dynamics of popular music in the 20th and 21st centuries. The strength in services project explores ways to upgrade low-paying, routine-oriented service jobs – the largest category of jobs in most developed economies – by improving monetary and non-monetary compensation, autonomy, training and opportunities for advancement.

Brian Hracs’ complete C.V.

Read more about Brian

Karen M. King

Post-Doctoral Fellow

As a population geographer, Karen’s research interests include migration, immigration and aging, focusing on refined spatial scales.

Currently, her research program at the MPI has two primary research streams. First, her research program examines the changing industry and occupation employment structure of Canada using the 2006 to 1971 Census of Canada Master files at national, provincial and sub-provincial levels. Second, her research program examines immigration and migration in the context of the creative class theoretical framework.  She has held a Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population postdoctoral fellowship at McMaster University where her research program examined aging in place of the older population in Canada. She has a B.A. (Economics) from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. (Economics) from the University of Toronto. Karen completed a Ph.D. (Geography) at McMaster University; her dissertation was comprised of four quantitative research papers examining the international and internal migration dynamics of Canada’s foreign-born population.

Karen King’s complete C.V.

Read more about Karen M.

Dieter F. Kogler

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dieter’s main research focus is on the evolutionary geography of knowledge formation, and in particular the spatial and sectoral dynamics of knowledge spillovers, i.e. externalities derived from the non-pecuniary exchange of knowledge. Other research efforts include the socio-economic analysis of global ‘Mega-Regions’ with particular focus on the dynamic nature of network structures, in order to enhance our understanding of such novel concepts as the ‘local buzz’ and ‘global pipelines’ research framework, and the impact of specialization and diversity on regional economic prosperity. Currently he is editing a book together with Maryann Feldman (UNC) and Harald Bathelt (UofT) titled ‘Dynamic Geographies of Knowledge Creation and Innovation’; which will be published by Routledge in their Regions and Cities series in 2010. Dieter’s career path combines personal, education and research experience acquired in Europe, the United States, and Canada within a variety of areas pertaining to the spatial analysis of socio-economic phenomena. He holds a B.A. (Honours) in Urban-Economic Geography from Queen Mary, University of London, UK, through which he participated in an extended exchange program with UCLA. Over the past 5 years he completed the M.A. and Ph.D. programs (Geography & Planning) at the University of Toronto.

Dieter Franz Kogler’s complete C.V.

Read more about Dieter F.
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Research Team

  • Patrick Adler, Research Associate
  • Maggie Chen, Research Assistant
  • Mark Denstedt, Research Associate
  • Zara Matheson, Research Associate
  • Ian Swain, Research Associate
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Affiliates

  • Ajay K. Agrawal

    Peter Munk Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Faculty Research Fellow, NBER
    Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
    University of Toronto

  • Nadia Amoroso

    Lecturer
    John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
    University of Toronto

  • Shauna Brail

    Director, Urban Studies Experiential Learning Program
    Lecturer, Urban Studies
    University of Toronto

  • Mark Brown

    Senior Research Economist
    Micro-Economic Analysis Division
    Statistics Canada

  • Nick Clifton

    Senior Lecturer in Regional Development
    Creative Leadership & Enterprise Centre
    Cardiff School of Management
    University of Wales Institute – Cardiff (UWIC)

  • Elizabeth Currid

    Assistant Professor
    School of Policy, Planning and Development
    University of Southern California

  • Richard DiFrancesco

    Director, Urban Studies Program, Innis College
    Associate Professor, Department of Geography & Programme in Planning
    University of Toronto

  • Betsy Donald

    MCIP Associate Professor
    Department of Geography
    Queen’s University

  • Damian A. Dupuy

    Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation

  • Alessandra Faggian

    Reader (Associate Professor) in Economic Geography
    RSAIBIS Treasurer
    University of Southampton School of Geography
    and
    Visiting Associate Professor
    Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics
    The Ohio State University

  • Todd Gabe

    Associate Professor
    School of Economics
    University of Maine

  • Gary J. Gates

    Senior Research Fellow
    The Williams Institute
    UCLA School of Law

  • Meric S. Gertler

    Dean, Faculty of Arts & Sciences
    Goldring Chair in Canadian Studies
    Department of Geography & Planning
    University of Toronto

  • Brian Knudsen

    Ph.D. candidate,
    Carnegie Mellon University

  • Deborah Leslie

    Canada Research Chair in Cultural Economy
    Department of Geography & Planning
    University of Toronto

  • José Lobo

    Associate Research Professor
    School of Human Evolution and Social Change
    Arizona State University

  • Roger Martin

    Dean, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management
    Professor of Strategic Management
    University of Toronto
    Premier’s Research Chair in Productivity & Competitiveness

  • Mark Partridge

    Co-Editor of the Journal of Regional Science
    Swank Chair in Rural-Urban Policy and Professor
    Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics
    Ohio State University

  • Naomi Pope, Ph.D.

    Manager, Economic Analysis
    Economic Competitiveness Division
    Ministry of Technology, Trade and Economic Development
    Government of British Columbia

  • Norma Rantisi

    Associate Professor
    Concordia University

  • Jason Rentfrow

    Lecturer in Social and Developmental Psychology
    Faculty of Social & Political Sciences
    University of Cambridge

  • Daniel Silver

    Professor
    Department of Sociology
    University of Toronto

  • David R. Smith

    Management Consultant

  • Olav Sorenson, Ph.D.

    Jeffrey S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Professor of Strategic Management
    Rotman School of Management
    University of Toronto

  • Greg Spencer

    Post Doctoral Fellow
    Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems
    Munk Centre for International Studies
    University of Toronto

  • William C. Strange, Ph.D.

    RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust Professor of Real Estate and Urban Economics
    Rotman School of Management
    University of Toronto

  • Deborah A. Strumsky

    Assistant Professor
    Department of Geography and Earth Sciences
    University of North Carolina at Charlotte

  • Daniel Trefler

    J. Douglas and Ruth Grant Canada Research
    Chair in Competitiveness and Prosperity
    Professor of Business Economics

  • Christian Unverzagt

    Design Director
    M1/DTW

  • Tara Vinodrai

    Assistant Professor
    Department of Geography and Environmental Management
    & Centre for Environment and Business
    University of Waterloo

  • Wendy Waters, Ph.D.

    Manager, Analysis & Research Services
    GWL Realty Advisors Inc.
    Personal blog: AllAboutCities.ca

  • David Wolfe

    Co-Director, Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems (PROGRIS)
    Munk School on Global Affairs, University of Toronto
    Professor of Political Science
    University of Toronto at Mississauga

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