Lake Sagaris lives in Chile, where she has worked as a writer, journalist, community leader and urban planner. Canadian born, she moved to Chile in 1981, and worked for 20 years, covering the movement for democracy against the Pinochet regime for the London Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, Miami Herald, CBC, CTV and other media.- In the 1990s, with a return to an elected government, she became active in neighbourhood issues. As an elected leader of the Bellavista neighbourhood association, she was one of 25 leaders of grassroots market and neighbourhood associations that founded Living City, in 2000. She holds a Master’s of Science (University of Toronto 2006) and a PhD in Urban Planning and Community Development (University of Toronto 2012). Her supervisor was Dr. Andre Sorensen and Dr. John Friedmann served as the external examiner for her final defence.
- Her research focuses on how citizen participation in urban transport and other planning processes can both deepen democracy and achieve more sustainable systems for living. This has also led her to examine issues of complexity theory, community-based and participatory research methods, and other experiments in the living laboratory of city planning systems (cambiarnos.cl), to explore issues related to collaboration and democratic governance, self- generated citizen organizations, and tools and spaces for building the citizen learning necessary for effective, robust organizations.
- She has worked extensively on cycling-inclusive transport planning, co-authoring some of the key texts in this field, and participatory strategies to build citizen support and demand for more sustainable transport systems. These experiences have led to awards in Chile and abroad, including the Danish Cycling Embassy’s global Award for Advancing Cycling, and presentations in diverse venues in Latin America, Europe, Canada, and India. Her contribution to diverse communities has been recognized by inclusion in the Ashoka global network of social entrepreneurs and the Synergos network of senior civil society leaders, among others.