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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA, Ontario – May 31, 2021 – The Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) is pleased to announce two new inductees into its esteemed College of Fellows: Kelley Moore RPP, FCIP, and Dr. Leela Viswanathan RPP, FCIP.
 
Designation as a Fellow of CIP is the highest honour a planner in Canada can receive. This special status recognizes national excellence, identifies prominent role models, promotes advances in planning practice, and draws leaders to the forefront of planning in Canada. Only Fellows are permitted to use the title FCIP, which denotes Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners. 
 
“It is an honour to induct into our College of Fellows two planners who have demonstrated such dedicated commitment to both their profession and to CIP,” said Dan Huang, RPP, MCIP, President of
the Canadian Institute of Planners. “They now join a group of illustrious planners who have been recognized for their significant contributions to professional planning in Canada and internationally.”
 
Chair of the CIP College of Fellows, Ann Joyner RPP, FCIP, further commented, “I am pleased to extend a warm welcome to our new Fellows, Kelley Moore and Leela Viswanathan. Both have not only advanced best practices for collaboration in community building processes, but have also been extensively involved in community service and leadership in the planning profession at a national level. They exemplify planning’s best values and are truly deserving of this honour.”
 
2021 CIP Fellows:
 
Kelley Moore RPP, FCIP
Few planners over their careers have made such a transformative impact on not only their communities, but also on the profession as Kelley Moore. For over 20 years, Kelley has worked to enrich the lives of others through her exceptional physical and social planning expertise and exemplary collaborative and community building processes. Her career has included work at the local, provincial, and international levels in both public sector planning as well as in the private sector.
 
Kelley Moore is an award winning practitioner who has been recognized for her leadership and accomplishments in several complex multi-stakeholder projects. Early in her career, at the City of Saskatoon, she elevated local area planning from a general consultative process to a hands-on collaborative planning and design process that has been emulated and adopted by many planning departments across the country. She later applied this expertise as a volunteer in Trinidad and Tobago, working with communities in those countries through a partnership between the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
 
At the Province of Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services, Kelley and her team were a co-recipient of the distinguished Premier’s Award for Service Excellence in 2013, and, in 2019, she was awarded the Deputy Minister’s Award for Building Organizational Culture. One of the projects that was recognized for its outstanding impact was her work on residential and day program services for people with disabilities. Using a collaborative approach with meaningful engagement, this work resulted in the dramatic improvement of the quality of life for citizens in need across the province. Since then, Kelley has continued to apply herself in many ways by volunteering for the profession and continuing to advance planning initiatives in her public sector roles as well as through her consulting practice, Prairie Wild Consulting Co.
 
In addition to her remarkable accomplishments as a practitioner, Kelley’s contributions to the profession are truly worthy of special recognition for the extraordinary impact they have made on the profession. In 2015, when the Canadian Institute of Planners organization was suddenly facing potential dissolution, Kelley Moore stepped up to help lead an initiative to rebuild the Institute. As Co-Chair of the FutureFORWARD Task Force, Kelley helped lead and shape the work that resulted in a re-invigorated, stable, and well-managed organization. To ensure the smooth implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations, Kelley went on to serve as a member of the CIP Board. For this work, in 2016 she and the other members of the FutureFORWARD Task Force were awarded CIP’s President’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to Planning.

Dr. Leela Viswanathan RPP, FCIP
Dr. Leela Viswanathan is an accomplished and innovative educator, researcher, and mentor. She promotes diversity and inclusion as a core strength of urban planners in both teaching and practice. Her outstanding ability to build connections among people, places, and practice has transformed planners and communities across Canada and beyond.
 
Leela has been recognized as a distinguished professor, researcher, mentor, and academic supervisor for over two decades. She has demonstrated exceptional leadership in advancing planning knowledge through her ability to unite various disciplines, levels of government, and community interests toward more equitable and inclusive communities.
 
Leela has focused her teaching and mentoring on shaping a generation of ethical, inclusive, and human-focused planners. She actively supports an ongoing community of practice for her students, mentees, and colleagues, and consistently encourages her students to embrace their place in a worldwide community of practice. As a result, her students have engaged in planning practice and research across Canada, Europe, South-East Asia, the Caribbean, and the United States. Leela’s influence on the next generation of planners is also evident in her collaborative research with Indigenous communities. Her exceptional contributions as a professor, mentor and, particularly, as a champion of equity, diversity, and inclusion, are demonstrated by her numerous accolades and awards.
 
Leela has a long and established track record of culturally and socially relevant research that promotes healthy and inclusive communities. Her PhD research on, “Postcolonial Planning: The Alternative Planning Group and the Transformation of Social Planning at the Turn of the 21st Century” remains a highly relevant study of the social and spatial transformation of multi-cultural cities. Over the past two decades, Leela has continued to significantly contribute to the theoretical basis of planning research and practice, particularly in the areas of social planning, equity, truth and reconciliation, and ethical practice. Leela has authored seven book reviews on topics including Indigenous planning, social justice in diverse suburbs, planning for diversity, and negotiating identity and belonging for racialized and immigrant populations. Leela is a skilled moderator, discussant, and presenter. For CIP’s centenary celebrations, she moderated four bilingual national discussions and co-created a discussion paper about the future of the planning profession in Canada.
 
Leela is widely recognized as a planner who believes that a professional’s actions must enhance equity and inclusion, particularly for historically underserved communities. As a thought leader in the planning profession, Leela is often asked to serve as a keynote speaker, moderator, or facilitator. She recognizes the humanity of practitioners and provides tools for planners to address their own mental health, resilience, and well-being. She has presented public and professional lectures on “Planning with Purpose,” mental resilience and wellness, fostering empathy, and addressing trauma and the emotions of ethical planning.
 
Leela continues to provide mentoring and leadership advice both through her private consulting firm, Viswali Consulting and as an Adjunct Associate Professor with Queen’s University. Her consulting work focuses on strategic approaches to relationship building for the purposes of both community development and systems change. Her achievements not only advance planning knowledge, but they contribute to the development of future planners and community leaders.
 
Full List of Fellows: cip-icu.ca/about-us/College-of-Fellows 
 
Fellow Nomination Process: to be eligible for nomination as a Fellow, an individual must be a CIP member in good standing, with their nominator providing evidence that all criteria for Fellowship have been met or exceeded (see criteria here). All nominations are brought before the Honours Jury, which presents their recommendations to the CIP Board of Directors for review and approval.
 

Media Contact:
Lori Barron-Munteanu
Manager, Communications
communications@cip-icu.ca
613.237.7526 ext. 507