🔈 NEW (forthcoming) I will present my work at ACSP 2026, Pittsburgh. Interested to meet up during the conference? Email me or catch me on spot!
🔈 NEW (forthcoming) I was invited as a speaker at Texas A&M University AI Across AEC Industry symposium this Fall! Hit me up in Texas! (October 5-6, 2026)
🔈 NEW (forthcoming) I was invited as a speaker at a symposium at Emory University this Fall! Hit me up in Atlanta! (September 4, 2026)
🔈 [CLOSED] I am hiring 1-2 research assistants this summer to support a few weeks of sprint work to collect zoning documents and verify AI pipeline results for grant proposals. Application was announced to Taubman College students and now closed (July, 2026).
🔈 NEW I presented multiple projects at NetSci 2026 Conference Satellites Urban Networks in the Age of AI and UrbanNet2026: Transport, Cities, Complexity and Urban Networks. Reach out to me if you will be there or interested to meet up in Boston! (June, 2026)
📄 NEW My new paper titled What and How Should Urban Planners Learn in the AI Era? Exploring Urban AI Pedagogy from a Pilot Course in Urban Planning Education is published in Journal of Planning Education and Research! It offers a thorough account of what I taught in the Urban AI course, why I structured it that way, how the pieces connect, what “success” (i.e., the critical use and understanding of AI) looks like in practice, and how it can be evaluated. I also wrote a blog post to reflect on Urban AI classroom observations that are fun to read.
💰 I was awarded the Empowering Research with AI Award by AI Institute at Michigan, University of Michigan! (March, 2026)
📄 Our new white paper: From Infrastructure to Implications: Data Center 101 for Urban Planners is published, together with an interactive media prototype that reveal many-to-many relationship mapping between data center infrastructure components and their associated implications. (Feburary, 2026)
🔈 I served as a panelist at a media briefing organized by AAAS Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues and SciLine on the topic of “Local implications of data center growth”. View recorded video and transcript here. (Feburary, 2026)
💰 I am awarded 2026 Graham Sustainability Catalyst grant with a team of faculty, looking into how data centers shape water, energy, and communities. (Jan, 2026)
📄 My dissertation project Transforming Mobility Barriers to Connectivity: Examining the Impact of the AeroATL Greenway Plan in Reconnecting Communities Around Aerotropolis Atlanta is published at Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board! (December, 2025)
🔈 I was invited as speaker at Urban Tech Summit at Cornell Tech on November 11-12th to share our recent research on data center and zoning (November, 2025).
🔈 I am invited as a roundtable panelist at University of Michigan Symposium on AI, Data Center Infrastructure, and Climate Change Challenge on October 30th. Register here.
🔈 I was invited to join UM Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program as an Affiliated Faculty! (October, 2025)
🔈 I am going to present a variety of projects at ACSP 2025 and is open to meet with prospective PhD students in-person during the conference! Please reach out to me in email early to schedule a time (October, 2025).
🔈 I spoke at UMSI (School of Information) again in a data center panel in the UM Climate Week. (October, 2025)
🔈 I presented the work on Decoding Municipal AI Landscape at UM School of Information Computational Social Science Seminar (see details). (October, 2025)
🔈 [CLOSED] I am hiring 1-3 research assistants Fall 2025 to support a project exploring the planning and community implications of data centers. Please apply through this Google Form. Application is due September 3rd. (August, 2025)
🔈 [CLOSED] I am hiring a full-time, nine months, Urban AI research associate to start in September, 2025. Interested candidate should apply as soon as possible as the deadline is rolling. Please see application details here. (July, 2025)
💰 I am awarded 2025 Michigan Institute of Data & AI in Society PODS grant, co-funded by Microsoft to work on project “Governing AI’s Footprint: A Scalable Human-AI Workflow to Extract Zoning Codes for Data Centers and Renewable Energy Sitting” (July, 2025)
🔈 I presented team research “Decoding the Municipal AI Landscape: Generative AI-Driven Insights for AI Governance and Application in the City of Seattle” at CUPUM 2025. (June, 2025)
🔈 I am grateful to have the opportunity to present a collection of my research on exploring Human-AI Collaboration at Urban Big Data Centre @ University of Glasgow. (June, 2025)
🔈 I am honored to give a seminar talk at UCL CASA to share my thoughts on how human (including planners!) and AI can better collaborate in the future. (June, 2025)
🔈 I shared my network research at NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress, hosted by Prof. Takahiro Yabe. (June, 2025)