Urban Research
Research areas cover urban infrastructure engineering, urban informatics, and innovative technologies for upgrading infrastructure performance, lifecycle management and resiliency.
Urban Informatics and Infrastructure Systems
Urban Informatics research focuses on the acquisition, integration, and analysis of diverse, large-scale data to understand and improve urban systems and quality of life in cities. Researchers seek a better understanding of complex urban systems and operations, utilizing existing and emerging data streams and novel urban sensors to observe, model, and analyze city form and function. Research in urban informatics is directly linked to practice by identifying and deploying new data-driven solutions to the most pressing challenges facing cities and their residents.
Research areas in urban infrastructure engineering cover innovative technologies for upgrading infrastructure performance, lifecycle management and resiliency. The goal of this work is to make cities around the world more sustainable, livable, equitable, and resilient.
Research includes:
- Intelligent infrastructure systems engineering monitoring and management
- Data-driven decision support
- Artificial intelligence systems for early detection and preemptive mitigation of water leaks and bio-contamination anomalies
- Smart asset management for energy, water and gas distribution networks
- Disaster resiliency of urban infrastructure
- Transportation infrastructure management in collaboration with NYC DOT and MTA
- Coastal ecosystem preservation in water stress regions with UNESCO-IHP
- Infrastructure rehabilitation technologies and Interference Management with NYC DDC
- Public education for promoting urban safety culture.
Research Centers, Groups, and Faculty
Building Informatics and Visualization Lab (BiLab)
The biLAB focuses on understanding the operational challenges associated with construction and operation of facilities and infrastructure systems in urban settings.
BUILT @ NYU
The Behavioral Urban Informatics, Logistics, and Transport Lab conducts research in the area of transportation systems design and modeling. Typical products of this lab may include dynamic operating policies for flexible transport services, a parking pricing and information system for travelers, or a fleet routing algorithm for autonomous vehicles or other cyber-physical transportation systems.
Urban Flooding Group
In a climate-changed world, flooding is expected to have an outsized influence on public health and infrastructure in urban areas. We are looking to develop a publicly- accessible platform that provides real-time flood information and to investigate changes to the microbiome.
Urban Intelligence Lab
We are focused on creating new data-driven methodologies to observe, model, and analyze the urban environment. Our work is grounded in solving real-world problems and providing decision-makers with a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between physical infrastructure systems, natural systems, and human systems.
Urban Modeling Group
Our mission is to change the way urban engineering is done by bridging the gap between Civil Engineering and Computer Science. We focus on developing tools to better understand the urban built environment through pioneering new means to optimize and synthesize multi-modal data collection, storage, and processing.
