Maya Desai

Maya Mahgoub Desai is Chair of Environmental Design at OCAD University and a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto. Her work brings together architecture, urbanism, culture, and health, informed by both research and lived experience with disability. She examines how built environments shape health outcomes by tracing relationships between design, socio-cultural systems, and well-being, with a focus on access, care, and climate resilience as foundations for more just and livable communities.

Her interdisciplinary research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals Funding Program, and the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation Spark Program. Her early scholarship on environmental futures and emerging technologies received the Architectural Research Centers Consortium King Medal and was shortlisted for the Prix de Rome for Emerging Practitioners.

As Senior Urban Designer and Planner at Moriyama Teshima Architects, she led campus, community, and municipal planning and design work across Canada and the Middle East. She brought a community-centred, climate-responsive approach that prioritized social inclusion and meaningful engagement and provided master planning and advisory services for clients such as Waterfront Toronto, Qatar’s Education City, the Surrey City Development Corporation, the Town of Whitby, and post-secondary institutions such as the University of Lethbridge, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Conestoga College.

Maya also contributes to professional and advocacy communities as the co-chair of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Promoting Equity and Justice Committee, a patient advocate and research partner with the University Health Network, and an executive member of Building Equality in Architecture Toronto, recipient of the 2024 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Advocate for Architecture Award.

In her spare time, she is a curious traveller and photographer who finds joy in music and dance, and in observing the rhythm, expression, and hidden choreography of everyday life unfolding across urban spaces and the natural world.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Architecture, urban design & planning, health equity, disability inclusion, climate-responsive design, socio-cultural urbanism, ecosystem health, environmental futures, and emerging technologies.