Suyash Shérékar

Suyash Shérékar is a research associate and doctoral candidate in the Mobility and Space research group at the ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development, Dortmund. He is part of the TRANSFORM doctoral network and is pursuing his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Klinger. His research investigates the emergence of School Streets in cities across North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, examining their role as transitional urban spaces and their significance for the development of child-friendly mobility cultures. The project builds directly on his Master’s thesis research on School Streets in Ghent under different spatial allocation regimes. He holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, including a research stay in Ghent. As an early-career researcher, his interests focus on urban mobility, child-friendly cities, car dependency, and neighbourhood-level transformations.

I am building an academic career in urban mobility research, focusing on the socio-spatial dimensions of cities. Investigating car dependency has become a central research interest, shaped by both academic curiosity and anecdotal experiences. Having lived in Turin, Ghent, and Dortmund, all within the European Blue Banana, my research has been informed by how industrial legacies, urban form, and sustainability politics negotiate daily mobilities within present-day urban environments in Europe. I aim excel in diverse methodologies and am committed to results-oriented, empirically-grounded research that balances theory and practice. Within TRANSFORM, I aim to explore how mobility intersects with children’s urban experiences, neighbourhood life, and public space. I am seeking a Europe-focused yet internationally engaged academic career that allows me to pursue long-term, rigorous research on car-indepdendent urban development and child-friendly cities.