Kristian is an urban and economic geographer. His research interests centre on issues of urban governance, housing and planning. 

Before moving to Macquarie University Kristian worked as a Research Fellow at the City Futures Research Centre, UNSW, and the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, The University of Newcastle.

Kristian is currently undertaking research projects:

1. Urban regeneration planning and governance - examining the complex ways urban regeneration projects are planned, funded and managed across different urban contexts. 
2. Formal and everyday assemblages of urban regeneration - exploring urban regeneration and renewal at the city-wide scale and tracing the complex assemblages which mediate urban change.
3. Impacts of planning reform on development and assessment - tracing the capacity of state governments, local councils and developers to enact development in the context of changing planning regulations
4. Social housing construction and management - explore residents' concerns over new social housing construction, the planning regulations directing development and the viability of new management structures (such as Community Housing).
5. Resident resistance to urban consolidation - tracing the role and impact of community groups in challenging strategic planning and local planning decisions which promote densification.
6. Affordable and student housing provision - investigating the policy, financing and governance arrangement for the delivery of new housing supply.
7. University property development - exploring the role of universities in shaping Australian cities, the property and development activities that underpin university strategies, and the ways financialisation and assetisation frame universities’ engagement with property, development, and markets.

ARC projects:

- Student housing in (a time of) crisis: interrogating student housing supply, ARC Discovery Project (DP260102802)

- Universities as entrepreneurial urban actors: how universities shape Australian cities, ARC Future Fellowship (FT210100357)

- Reassembling the city: understanding resident-led collective property sales, ARC Discovery Project (DP200101744) 

- Building a more sustainable city: official and everyday practices of regeneration, ARC Discovery Project (DP130100582)

Current HDR students:

- Success Shaibu - Universities as Urban Actors: The Roles of Universities in Urban Regeneration (PhD)

- Hanie Khosravi - Unpacking the Dynamics of Affordable Rental Housing in Australia (PhD)

Completed HDR students:

- Wayne Williamson – Community and government planning authority use of social media in planning practice: A mixed methods analysis from Sydney (PhD)

- Zahra Nasreen - Shared room housing in Sydney: An exploration of housing informality, platform technology and home making (PhD)

- Mahdiyeh Bagherzadeh Khosroushahi – Neoliberal Inspired Infrastructure Governance and Planning Reform in NSW (PhD)

- Lois Towart - The Geographic Supply Drivers of Australian Retirement Communities (PhD)

- David Fingland – Manufacturing certainty: the purpose of planning in New South Wales? (PhD)

- Pamela Box – What does ‘Shared Responsibility’ mean for flood risk management in Australia? (PhD)

- Byambadorj Tseregmaa – Urban transition in informal settlements in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (PhD)

- Carolyn Thompson – Master-planned estates and the politics of urban revitalisation (PhD)

- Kerstin Hermes – A comparative study of community linkages  (PhD)

- Khandakar Al Fair Uddin – Post-politics and Council Amalgamation in NSW (MRes)

- Anthonia Soligbo - Home Making and Sense of Community in Sydney Apartments (MRes)

- Dilakshan Tampoe - Off-site Constructed Housing in NSW: opportunities and barriers for affordable housing provision (MRes)