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Sneha Mandhan

Sneha Mandhan

Assistant Professor
EducationPhD
OfficeSBB-408B, South Bond Building
Areas of ExpertiseCultural planning; Place-making and place-keeping; Heritage planning; Urban design; Planning for ethno-cultural diversity; Social and cultural infrastructure; Public space.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sneha-mandhan-79927231/ (external link) 

Dr. Sneha Mandhan (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning at TMU. Her scholarship focuses, through a series of global case studies, on unearthing the biases that exist within colonial forms of planning and urban design, and centering land- and place-based practices that are part of the everyday culture of local communities. She studies how culture impacts the perception and use of spaces in the city by diverse populations, and the role of planning practitioners in creating spaces that are more culturally-safe and inclusive. Dr. Mandhan’s work straddles urban planning and design, and centres the importance of place in the everyday lives of local communities. 

Dr. Mandhan’s current research focuses on identifying how cultural and heritage planning tools in Canada can better contribute to equitable, culturally inclusive, and socially just cities for racialized immigrant communities. Her work analyzes how these communities adapt and use various kinds of spaces, such as places of worship, banquet halls, streets and parking lots, multigenerational housing, shops and eateries, and parks, for gathering and socializing, particularly outside of the downtown core, and how municipal planning policy and practice conceives of these spaces. 

Methodologically, Dr. Mandhan’s work is primarily qualitative and cartographic. She draws from several different disciplines and incorporates methods, both for research and dissemination, that are creative and suited to place-based research, including participant observation, spatial systems mapping, public life studies, photo-voice, walking interviews, participatory mapping, and discourse and policy analysis.

Dr. Mandhan holds a PhD in Planning from the University of Toronto, a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and professional undergraduate degree in Architecture from the National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, India. Prior to TMU, she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at MIT and the University of Toronto. In her teaching, she actively relies on tools from decolonial pedagogy, service-learning, universal design for learning, and community/public engagement models to create classroom environments that are safe, kind, challenging, and welcoming to students with diverse learning styles. Her classes often focus on methodology and process to ensure that students are learning skills that they can apply to projects in their professional practice beyond the classroom. She also has several years of professional experience working in urban and landscape planning, urban design, architecture, and community engagement with private and non-profit organizations in Canada, the United States, India, and the United Arab Emirates. 

Research

  • The role of culture in planning
  • Socio-cultural infrastructure in Canadian suburbs
  • Planning for racialized immigrant communities 
  • Cultural and heritage planning
  • Multigenerational housing
  • Neighbourhood parks as critical infrastructure
  • Streets and parking lots as public spaces 
  • Critical cartography

Teaching responsibilities:

  • PL8100: Physical Planning and Design Fundamentals
  • PLG532: Field Research Methods II
  • PLG220: Planning Studio I

Teaching interests:

  • Urban design 
  • Land-based planning
  • Cultural and heritage planning
  • Inclusive planning practice
  • Community engagement
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Public space

Chapters

  • Mandhan, S. (2025). Banquets and Belonging. In Z. Ebrahim, D. Reid, L. Woo, & J. Lorinc (Eds.), Messy cities: Why we can’t plan everything (pp. 253–262). Coach House Books.
  • Mandhan, Sneha and Alan Berger. “Coupling Environmental and Socio-Cultural Sustainability for Better Design. A Case Study of Emirati Neighborhoods and Landscape.” In Routledge Companion to Landscape Architecture, 2018.

Journal articles

Web publications:

Fellowships and Scholarships:

  • Graduate Alpar Scholarship (2023), Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto.
  • Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship (2022-2023, Inaugural cohort), University of Toronto.
  • Graduate Fellowship (2022-2023), School of Cities, University of Toronto.
  • Research Fellowship, 2022 Richard Charles Lee Insights through Asia Challenge, Asian Institute, University of Toronto.
  • Research Fellowship, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto.
  • Research Fellowship, Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy for management of the Re:Locations Journal (2020-2021).
  • John Horner Graduate Scholarship in Geography (2020) Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto.
  • Ontario Trillium Scholarship for PhD program at the University of Toronto (2018-2022).
  • MIT Nadine Lloyd Rodwin Travel Fellowship for graduate thesis (Winter 2013) .
  • MIT-India Program Fellowship for graduate thesis (Winter 2013).

Awards:

  • Co-recipient, Richard Charles Lee Student Leadership Award awarded to the editorial board of the Re:Locations Journal, (2019-2020 and 2020-2021).
  • Faculty of Arts and Sciences Recognition of Excellence Award (2018), University of Toronto.
  • Flora Crockett Stephenson Writing Prize for Master’s thesis (2014), Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT.