C.J. Champlin (Carissa)

Assistant Professor
ITC-SCI-PLAN
c.j.champlin@utwente.nl
+31534891009
Business card

Dr. Carissa Champlin is Assistant Professor of Geo-Transdisciplinarity and Experiential Urban Futuring at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She holds an MSc in Urban Planning from TU Berlin (2008). After spending several years in Berlin as a freelance consultant and lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, she completed her PhD in the collaborative design of planning support systems at the University of Twente (2019). Before joining ITC in 2024, she worked at TU Delft as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and as tenure tracker in the Climate Action Programme following here postdoc in the Resilience Lab at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. 

Dr. Champlin has spent 20 years working across various fields of urbanism at the intersection of human-centered design, spatial planning and civil engineering. A game co-design and inclusive digital planning technology expert, her research engages systemic design, urban planning and model building to facilitate collective action towards resilient and climate adaptive cities and regions. Carissa is co-editor of Reporting the Delta: An exploration of climate, space, and society through archival documentaries (TUDelft Open & Nai010, 2025) and serves on the scientific advisory boards of Games for Cities and the 4TU. Center for Resilience Engineering.

Expertise

  • Social Sciences

    • Planning
    • Support
    • Urban Resilience

  • Computer Science

    • Participatory Design
    • Stakeholders
    • Models
    • Contexts
    • Design

Organisations

Publications

2025

All hail the imagination!: Expanding Notions of Engineering Expertise in Technical Higher Education (2025)In Evolving Education: A Manifesto to Reimagine Higher Education (pp. 80-89). TU Delft OPEN Books. Champlin, C., Bendor, R. & Pelzer, P.https://doi.org/10.59490/mg.223Reporting the Delta: An Exploration of Climate, Space, and Society Through Archival Documentaries (2025)[Book/Report › Book editing]. TU Delft OPEN Books. Iuorio, L., Arbara, S. & Champlin, C.https://doi.org/10.59490/mt.109

2024

Biosphere functional integrity boundary and cities: Comparing Rotterdam and Lagos (2024)[Working paper › Preprint]. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Gupta, J., Kalfagianni, A., Okereke, C., Meissner, F., Singh, A., Champlin, C., Delarosa, A., Joaquín Fernández, S., Avides, M., Sarolta Héjja, Z., Okeke, C., Wahlqvist, E. & Fezzigna, P.https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4972266Amplifying weak signals: a method-building approach for inclusive climate resilience strategy making (2024)Frontiers in Computer Science, 6. Champlin, C., Eapen, A., Vitkutė, R., Groot, J. & Forgaci, C.https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2024.1265342Embedding OER in your lecture V2 (2024)[Other contribution › Other contribution]. Champlin, C.

2023

Measuring social resilience in cities: An exploratory spatio-temporal analysis of activity routines in urban spaces during Covid-19 (2023)Cities, 135. Article 104220. Champlin, C., Sirenko, M. & Comes, T.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2023.104220

2022

Frame Game as Teaching Methodology in Higher Education: The Case of RElastiCity (2022)In Gaming, Simulation and Innovations: Challenges and Opportunities - 52nd International Simulation and Gaming Association Conference, ISAGA 2021, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 115-123) (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 13219 LNCS). Springer (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Bekebrede, G. & Champlin, C.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09959-5_10Transport Resilience (2022)[Other contribution › Other contribution]. Champlin, C.A game co-design method to elicit knowledge for the contextualization of spatial models (2022)Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 49(3), 1074-1090. Champlin, C. J., Flacke, J. & Dewulf, G. P. M. R.https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083211041372

2021

RElastiCity: An urban resilience game (2021)[Other contribution › Other contribution]. Bekebrede, G., Bovenberg-Murris, G., van Veen, L. & Champlin, C.https://doi.org/10.48544/503f546e-a3ce-47b9-aa61-188f59080d40

Research profiles

Affiliated study programs

Courses academic year 2025/2026

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.

Current projects

URRRRRban

Urban Resilience through Responsive, Relational, Representative and Responsible Policymaking - Enabling Methods for Change

Cities must develop cohesive strategies to adapt to challenges that ask for resilience like climate change, digitalization, and social inequality. The URRRRRban project explores how Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs) can foster resilient, equitable and just urban policies. Collaborating with 4 municipalities, 18 scientific experts from 5 universities and 4 universities of applied science, 16 societal partners and 23 complementary experts, we will redesign KEMs across five policy cases:

  • Energy transition in Amsterdam Zuid Oost
  • Healthy, safe and attractive living environments in Enschede
  • Smart data use to shape urbanisation in Amersfoort
  • Redevelopment and sustainability in vulnerable neighbourhoods in Rotterdam
  • Building inclusive and resilient communities for AI and digital transition in Amsterdam.

By improving methodologies, providing reflection tools and developing a learning environment, we provide policy professionals with tools and ways of working to engage societal partners and citizens in shaping resilient urban policies, ensuring that cities, their inhabitants and their environment are better prepared for the future.

PRO BONO

Building Regional Capacity for Citizen Science

Game Changers

Solving Climate Change Challenges

To combat climate change challenges, universities need to deliver game-changers who play a
crucial role in building sustainable solutions. Game-changers are empathetic, open-minded people
that think out-of-the-box, can improvise, get people aligned, and can solve complex challenges.
Scientific knowledge and empathy are not enough to generate societal change; students also need
to become proficient in communication skills, while being provocative, inspirational, creative and
self-aware. Where working on sustainability challenges related to climate change is not new at ITC,
teaching such an attitude towards solving challenges is in its infancy. In this Comenius Senior Fellow project led by Dr. Janneke Ettema we develop an evidence-informed toolbox, consisting of three interrelated
toolsets that support students to acquire the game-changer’s attitude essential for solving complex
climate challenges.

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