Lake Sagaris

Institute for Sustainable Development, the Centre for Sustainable Urban Development; Laboratory for Social Change, Pontificia Universidad Catolica, Chile

Professor

Description

Lake Sagaris is a professor of research at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. Her work focuses on conducting Participatory Action Research for social change, using mostly city and democracy-related tools. She targets communities, activists, local and regional governments, academic and other networks in Chile. She is a founding member and current president of Ciudad Viva (Living City), a community organization and centre for citizen-led urban planning based in Santiago, Chile. She is also a bilingual editor, writer and urban planner. Ms. Sagaris has a Master of Science degree in urban planning and community development from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. In 1989, she received a Maclean Hunter Fellowship in Arts Journalism. In addition to the Synergos Senior Fellows Network, she is an Ashoka Fellow and belongs to the Avina network of Latin American civil society leaders. Born in Montreal, Canada, Ms. Sagaris has lived in Santiago, Chile since 1981. As a journalist there (1981-2000), her reports were featured in major media outlets around the world, including the BBC, CBC, The Economist Intelligence Unit (Report on Financing in Chile), and Newsweek, among others. During the military regime, she was president of the Foreign Press Association (1992-1994).