Welcome to my personal website!

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia (see my profile). I previously served as a Lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University (2024-2025), where I earned my Ph.D. in City Planning in August 2024.

Research Interests

My research rests at the intersection of housing development analytics, regional planning and governance, and sustainable urban form.

At SCARP, I examine housing approval process in Vancouver and across Canada by analyzing council debates and public hearings using AI and data analytics, with a focus on how arguments, narratives, comments, and community participation influence housing development decisions. This research is funded by the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (2026-2028). My current projects include:

• Human in the Loop or Out? Evaluating Human Involvement in Housing Approval Process in Vancouver using a Hybrid AI-Expert Pipeline
• Who Wants What Where and Why? Leveraging AI and City Council Records to Analyze Housing Supply Narratives in Vancouver, Canada (Under Review)
• Localism and housing opposition: comparing local and nonlocal responses to proposed housing development in the City of Vancouver.
• Housing opposition across participation channels: comparing language and reasoning in Online comments and in-person public hearings
• Councilor rhetoric and voting behavior: examining the roles of public backlash, electoral pressures, and party affiliation

Additionally, I am interested in regional-scale land use planning and governance, with a particular interest in how planning institutions, regulatory environments, and land use policies can effectuate more sustainable and equitable spatial patterns in both developed and developing countries. My dissertation studied regional spatial structure, with an emphasis on the evolutionary trajectories of polycentric urban forms and policy, and their impacts on 1) economic development & regional disparities, 2) quality of life, commuting patterns, and accessibility to public services, 3) environmental sustainability, including the urban heat island effect and air pollution. My current projects on this track include:

• The spatiotemporal evolution of urban spatial structure in 482 sub-Saharan African Cities, 2004-2024, and the unique characteristics of these cities (e.g., slums and urbanization).
• The Dirtier Fringe: Seasonal Reversal of the Core-Periphery PM2.5 Gradient in Sub-Saharan African Cities.
• Polycentric spatial structure in German State and Regional Spatial Plans: An LLM-Assisted census of what is articulated, why, and how.
• Reorganizing Agglomeration: Urban Scaling and the Rise of Polycentric Regions

Teaching and Courses

At Cornell, I teach a series of quantitative and spatial analysis courses that equip undergraduate and graduate students with the skills to analyze urban and regional challenges using GIS, spatial data science, econometrics, and machine learning. My teaching emphasizes the integration of emerging technologies (e.g., GeoAI, remote sensing, machine learning) with urban planning theories to address issues such as urbanization, equity, and environmental sustainability.

My courses include:

• Introduction to GIS (CRP 4080/5080) – Fundamentals of GIS for spatial analysis and urban planning.
• Intro to Urban Data Science (CRP 4680/5680, DESIGN 4680/5680)** – Applications of data science in urban planning and design.
• Mapping and Counter-mapping (CRP 4280/5280) (co-taught with Prof.Wenfei Xu) – Web & Cloud-based GIS and countermapping.
• Neighborhood Change and Quantitative Methods (CRP 2100) (co-taught with Prof.Wenfei Xu) – Housing policy debate & Statistical techniques for analyzing housing and neighborhood change.
• Introduction to Statistics for Urban Studies (CRP 1200) – Statistical foundations for urban and regional studies for undergraduates.

Professional Background

Before my Ph.D., I worked as a Project Assistant at the Tompkins County Department of Social Services, contributing to the Mobility-as-a-Services (Maas) pilot project, funded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Shared-Use Mobility Center (SUMC). My work focused on developing more equitable and affordable multi-modal mobility solutions for socially vulnerable communities, including older adults, individuals with disabilities, and low-income populations.

I hold a Master’s in Regional Planning (MRP) from Cornell University, where my research focused on green justice and non-market environmental valuation using hedonic modeling.