DECARBONIZING
CITIES

Gary Adamkiewicz, PhD MPH, is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he directs the Healthy Cities Lab . He oversees several research initiatives and projects committed to providing new insights into the real-world mechanisms that shape environmental health disparities and to provide new pathways to alleviate these disparities. Gary brings more than 30 years of experience in environmental health to this mission. Dr. Adamkiewicz holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from MIT and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Soraya Axelsson, Commercial Director CCS at Öresundskraft, is heading Sweden’s groundbreaking Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) initiative in the waste-to-energy sector. With a proven track record of sparking innovation in both private and public sectors, where brand and business are paramount, Soraya has been a transformative force, reshaping both visions and organizations. Over the past decades, she has driven cultural, structural, and capability changes, positioning herself as a leader in sustainable solutions. Soraya’s visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to pioneering environmental initiatives position Öresundskraft at the forefront of the dynamic CCS investment landscape, propelling towards net-zero by 2030.

Erin Baumgartner is the CEO and cofounder of Family Dinner, a farmers’ market delivery business based in Eastern New England. Launched in 2017, Family Dinner works with local farmers and food purveyors weekly to find New England’s best ingredients and deliver them to homes in the Greater Boston Area. They use data and predictive analytics to curate bountiful deliveries to their customers, reduce waste in the food supply chain and help small farmers be competitive at a larger scale. Family Dinner was named Best of Boston CSA in 2022. Before transitioning to her full-time role at Family Dinner, Erin enjoyed a 11 year career at MIT in business development and directing lab operations, most recently as the Assistant Director of the MIT Senseable City Lab. S

Assaf Biderman is a technology inventor, author, and entrepreneur and Associate Director of the Senseable City Lab. He is the founder of Superpedestrian, a robotics company that focuses on the future of personal urban mobility, and the co-inventor of the Copenhagen Wheel: MIT’s award winning bicycle project and the company’s first product. Superpedestrian has received multiple awards including the Red Dot: Luminary – the highest Red Dot distinction – Time Magazine’s 25 Best Inventions of 2014, and the Deutscher Werkbund award. Biderman focuses on working in partnership with city government and industry members worldwide to explore how distributed and embedded technologies can be used to improve livability in cities and create a more sustainable urban future.

Jacopo Buongiorno is the TEPCO Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES), and the Director of Science and Technology of the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory. He has published over 100 journal articles in the areas of reactor safety and design, two-phase flow and heat transfer, and nanofluid technology. For his research work and teaching he won several awards, among which recently the 2022 ANS Presidential Citation. Jacopo is a consultant for the nuclear industry in the area of reactor thermal-hydraulics, and a member of the Accrediting Board of the National Academy of Nuclear Training. He is also a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, a Fellow of the NUclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH) conference, a member of the ASME, past member of the Naval Studies Board (2017-2019), and a participant in the Defense Science Study Group (2014-2015).

Robin Chase is a transportation entrepreneur. She is co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the world’s leading carsharing network; as well as co-founder of NUMO, an alliance organization that leverages tech-based disruption in the transport sector to create sustainable and just mobility. She has also founded and led startups focusing on ride-sharing, peer-to-peer carsharing, and vehicle network communications.

She is Chair of the public company Tucows and serves on the advisory board to WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. Robin lectures widely, has been frequently featured in the major media, and has received many awards in the areas of innovation, design, and environment, including the prestigious Urban Land Institute’s Urban Visionary Prize, Time 100 Most Influential People, Fast Company Fast 50 Innovators, and BusinessWeek Top 10 Designers. Robin graduated from Wellesley College and MIT’s Sloan School of Management, was a Harvard University Loeb Fellow, and received an honorary Doctorate of Design from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Tiffany Chu is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, born in Queens and raised in New Jersey, with a residence in Boston following a west coast adventure. Her non-linear journey has spanned design, entrepreneurship, and cities. She has mapped over 100 street vendors in Vietnam, worked in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, initiated UX at Zipcar, and served on San Francisco’s Environment Commission. She studied architecture and urban planning at MIT.

In 2014, she embarked on a fellowship at Code for America, focusing on technology for the public sector. Alongside a few friends, she co-founded and became the CEO of Remix, a software platform used by over 500 cities globally to plan better transportation and increase access to opportunity. In 2021, Remix was acquired by Via.

Currently, she is the Chief of Staff to Mayor Michelle Wu, the first-ever elected woman, person of color, and Asian American to serve as Mayor of Boston. When not at City Hall, she can be found riding her bike, working at a pottery wheel, or running with her dog Nori.

Fábio Duarte is a Lecturer in DUSP, Head of Research Initiatives in the Center for Real Estate, and Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Senseable City Lab, where he manages projects including Underworlds, Roboat, City Scanner, as well as the data visualization team. Duarte has a background in urban planning and a PhD in communication and technology from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. Duarte was a professor at PUCPR (Curitiba, Brazil), and has been a visiting professor at the Yokohama University and Twente University. Duarte serves as a consultant in urban planning and mobility for the World Bank. His most recent books are “Urban play: make-believe, technology and space (MIT Press, 2021) and “Unplugging the city: the urban phenomenon and its sociotechnical controversies” (Routledge, 2018). Duarte’s papers have appeared in Urban Studies, Journal of Urban Technology, Scientific Reports, and Science Robotics.

Alexis Ellis is a biological scientist with the US Forest Service Forest and Inventory Analysis program. She has over 25 years of experience in the fields of forestry, information technology and geographic information systems. She currently serves at the production lead for the i–Tree suite of tools assessing current and future forest structure and ecosystem services. In this role she works with users, scientists, and developers tointegrate emerging science and new functionality into the tools to meet the needs of i-Tree users across the globe.

Umberto Fugiglando is a Research Manager at the MIT Senseable City Lab, where he leads the Lab’s global research development. He has been leading and managing multi-stakeholder research projects on data science applied to urban technology initiatives, and conducted research focusing on human driving behavior and mobility patterns in cities. Additionally, Umberto is co-founder of ReFuse, a social enterprise based in Lebanon working to improve the well-being of communities exposed to waste hazards. Umberto’s background is in Applied Mathematics and Engineering, and he has studied in Italy, Sweden, Canada and US.

Rosa Lasaponara -Research Director at CNR- has more than 25 years of experience in EO from satellite/airborne/ground passive and active sensors.

Main Research interests : Natural and environmental process analyses and modelling, data science, risk estimation and mitigation, environmental degradation, paleo-environmental investigations and archaeological studies. Author of more than 350 peer reviewed papers and PI of ( more than 50 ) international and national research projects

Martina Mazzarello is a Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT Senseable City Lab and currently leading the Senseable City Lab in Dubai. She has a PhD in Spatial Design from the Politecnico di Milano. Her research interests include the possibilities of bringing together the layers of physical, digital, and human interaction in the environment. She is currently leading research projects using data and science to better understand changes in ways of living and working in cities. Mazzarello’s articles have been published in Nature Computational Science, Nature Water—for which her visualizations were also selected as the cover.

Leslie Norford is Professor of Building Technology in the Department of Architecture at MIT. His research focuses on reducing building energy use and associated environmental impacts.

He has studied how control of HVAC systems can improve urban heat resilience by reducingpeak electrical loads and help electric utilities mitigate the impact of power fluctuations associated with wind and PV systems. Through leading a research group in Singapore, and related work with colleagues in Abu Dhabi, he has measured and modeled urban microclimates, with a focus on identifying strategies to improve human thermal comfort in outdoor urban areasand identify the warming effect of anthropogenic heat emissions.

Oluwatobi Oyinlola, a Research Fellow at MIT Seseable City Lab, specializes in IoT and urban sensing technologies.

Before joining MIT, he graduated with a Master’s degree in Internet of Things, Embedded Computing Systems, at the African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things, University of Rwanda as a World-Bank scholar.He was awarded as one of Nigeria’s Most Influential Young individuals in 2018 and 2019, he was recognized by the World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva (Now the IMF president) for his pay-as-you-cook solution to help Rwandans use LPG gas. In 2022, he was shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize for creating a solar-powered, IoT-enabled workstation.He currently serves as an Intel Advisory Board Member for IoT and a Board member for the Open-Source Hardware Association (OSHWA)

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the GSD. He teaches courses in the history and theory of architecture and technology. Trained as an engineer, architect, and historian, Picon works on the history of architectural and urban technologies from the eighteenth century to the present. Picon has received a number of awards for his writings, including the Médaille de la Ville de Paris and twice the Prix du Livre d’Architecture de la Ville de Briey, a well as the Georges Sarton Medal of the University of Gand. In 2010, he was elected a member of the French Académie des Technologies. He is Chevalier des Arts et Lettres since 2014. He is also Chairman of the Fondation Le Corbusier. Picon’s most recent books offer a comprehensive overview of the changes brought by the computer and digital culture to the theory and practice of architecture as well as to the planning and experience of the city. He has published in particular Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Profession (2010), Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (2013), Smart Cities: Théorie et Critique d’un Idéal Autoréalisateur (2013), and Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence (2015).

Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He graduated in engineering from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD in architecture at the University of Cambridge, UK. Carlo holds several patents and has co-authored over 250 publications. As well as being a regular contributor to the architecture magazine Domus and the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, he has written for the BBC, La Stampa, Scientific American and The New York Times. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum in Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, GAFTA in San Francisco and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Carlo has been featured in Esquire magazine’s ‘2008 Best & Brightest’ list and in Thames & Hudson’s selection of ‘60 innovators’ shaping our creative future. In 2010, Blueprint magazine included him as one of the ‘25 People Who Will Change the World of Design’, Forbes listed him as one of the ‘Names You Need To Know’ in 2011 and Fast Company named him as one of the ’50 Most Influential Designers in America’. He was also featured in Wired magazine’s ‘Smart List 2012: 50 people who will change the world’. His ‘Digital Water Pavilion’ at the 2008 World Expo was hailed by TIME magazine as one of the ‘Best Inventions of the Year’. In 2011, Carlo was awarded the Renzo Piano Foundation prize for ‘New Talents in Architecture’. Carlo has been a presenter at TED (2011), program director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, curator of the ‘2012 BMW Guggenheim Pavilion’ in Berlin, and was named ‘Inaugural Innovator in Residence’ by the Queensland Government. The Italian Minister of Culture also named Carlo as a member of the Italian Design Council – an advisory board to the Italian Government that includes 25 leaders of design in Italy.

Christoph Reinhart is a building scientist and architectural educator working in the field of sustainable building design and environmental modeling. At MIT, he serves as Director of the Building Technology Program and head of the Sustainable Design Lab (SDL), an inter-disciplinary group with a grounding in architecture that develops design workflows, planning tools and metrics to evaluate the environmental performance of buildings and neighborhoods. He is also a managing member at Solemma, the makers of ClimateStudio. Planning tools originating from SDL and Solemma are used in practice and education in over 90 countries.

Jeff is the Northeast Director of Planning for Toole Design group focusing transportation, land use planning, and urban policy. For his PhD dissertation, he designed and implemented a randomized controlled evaluation to test the impact of low-income fares on ridership behavior, custom designing an automated ChatBot tool to facilitate participant recruitment and collection of daily trip purpose diaries. Previously, for the City of Cambridge, he managed large street redesign projects, coordinated regional planning, and launched a transit planning practice. In 2004, he co-founded LivableStreets Alliance, an urban planning policy and advocacy transportation nonprofit. He has previously served on the Bicycle Technical Subcommittee of the National Committee on the MUTCD, MassDOT’s Advisory Board, Boston’s Complete Streets Advisory Board, MBTA’s “Plan for Accessible Transit Infrastructure” review committee, and TRB’s Transit Fare committee. Prior to his adventures in transportation, he led sustainable development and environmental impact assessment projects in Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. He has a MS in Civil/ Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon and professional engineering licenses in Massachusetts and Maine. For the past 10 years, Jeff has been co-teaching the Northeastern University “Sustainable Transportation” summer course with Professor Furth held at TU-Delft, Netherlands.

Paolo Santi is Research Scientist at MIT Senseable City Lab where he leads the MIT/Fraunhofer Ambient Mobility initiative, and a Senior Research at the Istituto di Informatica e Telematica, CNR, Pisa. Dr. Santi holds a “Laurea” degree and the PhD in computer science from the University of Pisa, Italy. Dr. Santi is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and has recently been recognized as Distinguished Scientist by the Association for Computing Machinery. His research interest is in the modeling and analysis of complex systems ranging from wireless multi hop networks to sensor and vehicular networks and, more recently, smart mobility and intelligent transportation systems. In these fields, he has contributed more than 120 scientific papers and two books.

Jay Turner is a professor of Environmental Studies at Wellesley College. He received a PhD in history from Princeton University. He teaches courses in US environmental history, politics, and policy. His most recent book is Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future, which won the Glasscock Book Prize and was a finalist for the Cundill Prize in History. He and his students have been tracking the consequences of the Inflation Reduction Act for the domestic electric vehicle supply chain. Their work can be seen here.

Titus is the lead of the MIT Senseable Amsterdam Lab (SAL) – a joint research initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the AMS Institute. Within SAL he works on introducing novel data and science-based methods and tools to help the city of Amsterdam transition to a carbon-neutral city.

Jinhua Zhao is the Professor of Cities and Transportation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Prof. Zhao integrates behavioral and computational thinking to decarbonize the world’s mobility system. Prof. Zhao founded the MIT Mobility Initiative, coalescing the Institute’s efforts on transportation research, education, entrepreneurship, and engagement. He hosts the MIT Mobility Forum, highlighting transportation innovation from MIT and across the globe. Prof. Zhao directs the JTL Urban Mobility Lab and Transit Lab, leading long-term collaborations with transportation authorities and operators worldwide and enabling cross-culture learning between cities in North America, Asia and Europe. Prof. Zhao leads the program “Mens, Manus and Machina (M3S): How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Future of Learning” at the Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). He is the co-founder and chief scientist for TRAM.Global, a mobility decarbonization venture. He very much enjoys working with students.