Brandon Ladd joined the Master of Science in Rural Planning and Development (thesis-based) at the University of Guelph in 2026. His research explores urban design, sustainability and climate policy, with a particular focus on how Nordic approaches to mobility and settlement planning can inform more resilient, low-carbon communities. Taking a mixed methods approach, he combines GIS and spatial analysis with qualitative inquiry to examine how policy and the built environment shape socio-economic and climate outcomes.

Brandon comes to planning from a technical background in IT infrastructure engineering, spanning cloud, DevOps and systems administration, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Management. Building on this experience, he works with Python and remote sensing to analyse complex spatial data. He is bilingual in English and French, and speaks some Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.