People

 

RESEARCHERS

 
 
Maryam Hosseini maryamh[at]mit.edu  

Rutgers University PhD, 2022.

Maryam is a Postdoctoral Associate in the City Form Lab, at the MIT department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), focusing on pedestrian accessibility and walkability in urban public spaces. Prior to joining CFL, she was a research associate at the Visualization and Data Analytics Research Center (VIDA) at NYU. Her research aims to address existing gaps between planners’ needs and available urban analysis tools by developing new, theory-rich technologies for large scale assessment of the quality of the built environment at the intersection of urban planning, economics, and computer science. Her main research interests are pedestrian mobility infrastructure and planning, assessing the impact of the built environment on walkability and accessibility, and human-focused design of cities using computer vision, spatial analysis, and agent-based modeling. She develops generalizable models for automated auditing of pedestrian facilities, specifically sidewalks, and uses the developed models to create pedestrian level data sets at scale, specifically for less resourced cities. Her work highlights how these generalizable models can be applied to cities for which built environment datasets are lacking today.
 
 
Rounaq Basu rounaq[at]mit.edu  

MIT DUSP, PhD, 2022, Master of City Planning 2019
MIT CEE, MS in Transportation 2019
IIT Bombay, BTech in Civil Engineering 2016

Rounaq is a Postdoctoral Associate in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His research interests include sustainable city planning, integrated urban systems, and relationships between mobility access and quality of life. He is particularly interested in thinking about ways to reduce auto-dependence that can enhance transportation equity and drive sustainable metropolitan growth. He has previously consulted for the World Bank on public transit accessibility and integration with on-demand mobility in Latin American cities. At CFL, Rounaq is researching pedestrian behavior and how it is shaped by the built environment.

 
 
Aziz Alhassan alhassan[at]mit.edu 

MIT CEE/CSE, PhD Candidate, Civil and Environmental Engineering/Computational Science and Engineering, 2022
MIT CCSE, Master of Science in Computation for Design and Optimization, 2017
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, B.S. Computer Science, 2013

Aziz is an advocate for walkability, access and public transit in urban areas. His current research focuses on the design and analysis of walkable neighborhoods around transit stops, and promoting transit oriented development (TOD). Prior to MIT, Aziz worked as a public policy researcher at the Center for Complex Systems at KACST, covering topics in water infrastructure, labor market economics and renewable energy in Saudi Arabia.
 
 
Justin Kollar jkollar[at]mit.edu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PhD Student, 2020–Present. Fellow at Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU). Harvard Graduate School of Design, MArch I, 2017. University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture, BS Arch, 2012.

Justin Kollar is a certified planner, designer, researcher, and Ph.D. fellow at the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) at MIT. Justin’s interests include the development of methods for spatial planning and implementation to create more sustainable, walkable, and equitable urban environments. His broader intellectual interests also span several areas such as digital urbanism, environmental security, administrative ecology, infrastructure studies, and territorial planning in cities in the U.S. as well as across Central, Southeast, and East Asia.
 
  
Meera Gregerson  meerag[at]mit.edu

Meera Gregerson is a fourth-year undergraduate of Urban Science and Urban Planning with Computer Science student at MIT. Her research uses GIS and Urban Network Analysis to analyze accessibility and walkability of cities over time.

 
 
Christina Last lastc[at]mit.edu

Christina Last is a Fulbright scholar and Legatum Fellow during her Masters in Urban Studies in partnership with the City Form Lab. Her research focuses on using remote sensing and spatial data science to design and analyse of walkable neighbourhoods. Previously, she was a Research Data Scientist at the UK's Artificial Intelligence Institute, where she specialised in improving machine learning research with leading UK Universities and the UK Government, where she advocates for open source research as a Software Sustainability Fellow. She has led various humanitarian research projects, most recently as the CTO of AQAI, a UNICEF-backed startup predicting pollution analysis for 1.8 billion children using machine learning.

 
 

Daniel C. Pratama danielcp[at]mit.edu

MIT, DUSP, Master of City Planning 2023, Bandung Institute of Technology, BA Architecture, 2016.


Daniel is interested in using data analytics to understand how urban forms might improve spatial qualities such as walkability, bikeability, service availability, and affordability. Before CFL, Daniel was an urban designer in a Jakarta-based consultancy firm working on streetscape improvements, TOD planning, and new-town master planning.

 
 

Nicola Colaninno nico77[at]mit.edu

H2020 MSCA If-GF, 2022; Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), Ph.D. 2016;Sapienza University of Rome, BSc and MSc Arch 2005


Nicola is an Assistant Professor in GIScience and Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano, Dept. of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU). His research interests and main achievements focus on applied GIScience and Remote Sensing, Urban Science, and Urban Planning, with special emphasis on Urban Climate Analysis, Planning, and Design. Currently an H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the City Form Lab (CFL) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he is investigating the pedestrian-oriented impact of the Urban Heat Island phenomenon. From 2013 to 2016, he was self-employed in the field of Technical Services of Engineering, and Specialist in Remote Sensing (RS), Geographical Information Systems (GIS), and spatial analysis supporting different works, including the UN-Habitat City Prosperity Index, and the development of a Base Plan for the city of Jacmel, Haiti, based on the model for base planning developed within the UIA-CIMES Programme and the UNESCO Chair on Intermediate Cities, in coordination with UN-Habitat.

 
 
Liu Liu lyons66[at]mit.edu  

Phd candidate MIT DUSP, Master in City Planning 2014 MIT, Tongji University, BE in Urban Planning 2012

Liu is a PhD student in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. His research lies in understanding the relationship between built forms and visual perceptional feedback on street level. Particularly he is interested in using urban imagery as a medium to promote public engagement for sidewalk improvement. Since 2017, he founded a start-up focusing on physical environment evaluation based on urban image analysis using computer vision. Before that, he worked as a college aide in MTA for analyzing and visualizing AFC data, and refining the pipeline of GTFS in 2013. In 2014 He worked as an urban data scientist in China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, during which He was appointed as external advisor for Tencent in charge of Population Flow section based on 1 billion LBSN data. He was hired by World Bank as a consultant in 2018 for the evaluation of visual environment of TOD in Beijing.

 
 
Kimberly Becerril kimbece[at]mit.edu  

MCP candidate, 2024
B.A. UC Berkeley, 2016

Kimberly is a Master of City Planning candidate at DUSP and a Research Associate in the City Form Lab. She received a B.A. in Geography with minors in Forestry and Geospatial Information Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016. Her research utilizes Geographic Information Systems and Rhino to process and analyze the walkability of seven major cities throughout a time-series. Previously, she worked as a Geospatial Analyst developing interactive mapping applications and cartographic projects focused on environmental conservation and social equity. Kimberly’s interests include urban science, sustainable development, walkability, and environmental justice.

 
 
Bahij Chancey bahij[at]mit.edu  

MIT DUSP, Master of City Planning 2021
Yale University, BFA Architecture, 2013

Bahij is an advocate for sustainable, walkable, and bikeable cities, and hails from New York City. Prior to MIT, Bahij worked in architecture, city government, and nonprofit development at Green City Force, which operates a green job training program for public housing residents. At CFL, Bahij is researching pedestrian flow models and determinants in urban environments.
 
 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR


Andres Sevtsuk, PhD asevtsuk[at]mit.edu

Andres Sevtsuk is a Charles and Ann Spaulding Career Development Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, where he also leads the City Form Lab. His research focuses on making cities more walkable, sustainable and livable, bridging the fields of urban design, spatial analytics and mobility research. Andres is the author of the Urban Network Analysis toolbox, used by researchers and practitioners around the world to model pedestrian flows along city streets and to study coordinated land use and transportation development along networks. He has published a book entitled “Street Commerce: Creating Vibrant Urban Sidewalks” with Penn Press and before that, "Urban Network Analysis: Tools for Modeling Walking and Biking in Cities" with Tianjin University Press. Andres has collaborated with a number of city governments, international organizations, planning practices and developers on urban designs, plans and policies in both developed and rapidly developing urban environments, most recently including those in US, Indonesia, Estonia and Singapore. He has led various international research projects, published in planning, transportation and urban design journals, and received numerous awards for his work. Before joining MIT, Andres was an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He holds a PhD from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and an SMArchs in Architecture and Urbanism from MIT.

  

COLLABORATORS

 
 
Dylan Halpern d_h[@]mit.edu  

MIT DUSP, Master of City Planning 2020

Virginia Commonwealth University, BFA Graphic Design, 2015

Dylan engages research topics centered on data visualization, mobility and commercial activity in cities, and analysis of built form. He comes from a background in visual communication and architecture, and affiliations include Fulbright Brazil (2017), Civic Data Design Lab (2018-2020), and Senseable City Lab (2020). His work has been featured in the Cooper Hewitt Museum (2018), the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2019), and the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2020). At CFL, Dylan is researching behavior and flows of people during COVID-19 and ways to effectively communicate insights.

 
 
Anne Hudson awhudson[at]mit.edu  

MIT DUSP, Master of City Planning 2020
MIT CEE, MS in Transportation 2020
Hamilton College, BA in German Literature, 2012

Annie’s research focuses on preparing cities for next-generation transportation technologies. Prior to her time at MIT, she worked as an energy policy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC and as a policy consultant for urban mobility clients ranging from Zipcar to Zagster. AT CFL, Annie is researching how behavior and flows of people are changing during COVID-19.



Raul Kalvo  raul[at]inphysica.com

Tampere University of Technology, Estonian Academy of Arts.

Raul is an architect and computational designer. Prior of joining Tampere University of Technology as a researcher he founded computational design office Inphysica Technology Ltd and held a researcher position at City Form Lab in Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). His research topics ranged from fabrication methods to urban accessibility models. Raul Kalvo is currently lead developer for “Urban Network Analysis for Rhino” and “Grid Structure Fabrication toolset for Rhino”. Kalvo has been honored by Singapore President Design Award, best paper award at SimAUD and been multiple times nominee for EAIA Annual Prize in exhibition category. He has also worked as an architect for 3+1 Architect and a lecturer at Estonia Academy of Arts. He has lead workshops in numerous firms and institutions, such as RMIT (Melbourne), Foster and Partners (London), ARUP (London), Perkins+Will (UK), KPF (New York), SOM (New York), ETH (Zurich), EPFL (Lausanne), Advances in Architectural Geometry (London).

 

Reza Amin Darbari, PhD  r.a.darbari[at]gmail.com 

Data and Analytics Manager at San Francisco Planning Department


Reza completed his PhD in Design at North Carolina State University, with a co-major in Forestry and Environmental Resources (in the Geospatial Analytics concentration), and a minor in Statistics. His research interests include urban design, urban morphology, geospatial analytics, land change modeling, history of urban form, and in general, the relationship between city form and its environmental and socio-economic performances. His PhD dissertation is focused on developing a non-deterministic land-tax-based framework for land-use planning as an alternative to conventional zoning. Developing and using an agent-based land change model, his PhD research explores how the spatial distribution of land use and density changes under different land tax policies and design scenarios.
Prior to starting his PhD, Reza was a researcher at City Form Lab at Singapore University of Technology and Design, and MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. At MIT DUSP, he collaborated on the Making the Clean Energy City in China project for developing a neighborhood scale Energy Proforma. During his time at City Form Lab, he collaborated on several projects, including the World Bank’s initiatives for establishing City Planning Labs in Indonesian Cities, and for Measuring Urban Expansion and Transformation in East Asia and Pacific Regions.

  

PAST RESEARCHERS

  
Kloe Ng (MIT), Rubén G. Morgan (MIT), Prathito Wisambodhi (MIT), Jung Hyun Woo  (GSD), Kevin Chong (GSD), Matthew Schreiber (GSD), Alexander Mercuri (GSD), Jia Gu (GSD), Haibei Peng (GSD), Karen Stolzenberg (GSD), Onur Ekmekci (SUTD) , Lisa Sweeney (SUTD), Emily Royall (MIT/SUTD), Liqun Chen (MIT/SUTD), Lennard Ong (SUTD), Farré Nixon (MIT/SUTD), Michael Mekonnen (MIT).