Debbie Oyeku

Debbie holds a B.Tech in Urban and Regional Planning (2006) from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Nigeria. She has over a decade of consultancy experience in planning policy reviews, planning advocacy, transport impact assessment, environmental impact assessment, socio-economic impact assessment, and various physical development plans (strategic, master and regional) across different states in Nigeria between 2008 and 2018.

Her areas of expertise are research on the institutionalization of geo-information tools, technologies, and methodologies in the planning processes. Such interest helps support spatial planning and management of territories to create a sustainable, inclusive and resilient environment for human settlements and socio-economic developments.

Debbie’s experience with the gaps between geo-information tools, technologies and methodologies development, adoption and institutionalization in spatial planning practice prompted her academic quest in 2018. She holds an MSc degree in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation with a specialization in Urban Planning and Management (2020) from the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente.

Her research on “Embedding Planning Support Systems (PSS) in the spatial planning process: The case of the Spatial Development Framework (SDF) methods in Rwanda” investigated how unplanned changes during PSS implementation explain adoption, embeddedness or otherwise. The research explored the concept of drift from information systems research to propose the need for PSS research to investigate and document unplanned changes during implementation. It concludes that such research will contribute to the challenges of PSS adoption and embeddedness in spatial planning practice.

She is a Doctoral candidate with the PGM department, Faculty ITC, on “The institutionalization of planning support systems (PSS) in the planning process”.