Our Team
Describe your team here.
Markus Schläpfer is an Assistant Professor in the Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Department at Columbia University. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from ETH Zurich and conducted postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute. Before joining Columbia University, he was a Principal Investigator at the ETH Future Cities Laboratory and an Assistant Professor (adjunct) at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
His research goal is to develop a science-based understanding of cities and use these insights to design people-centric, efficient, and resilient urban infrastructures. To achieve this goal, Markus Schläpfer and his research group combine new urban analytics and complexity science approaches with state-of-the-art infrastructure engineering techniques.
Prof. Schläpfer's work has been published in top-tier venues such as Nature (twice) and has been covered in the media worldwide. In addition, he won several prizes, including the First Prize in the Data for Development Challenge (2015), and he has been Finalist in the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year (2021).
Jinpeng Li is a PhD student in the Urban Systems Engineering Lab at Columbia University. His research focuses on understanding how changes in urban infrastructure affect people’s mobility patterns. By examining the complex interactions between human mobility and evolving infrastructure systems, he aims to develop innovative planning approaches that foster more efficient, equitable, and resilient urban environments.
Hongrong is a Ph.D. student at Columbia University's Urban Systems Engineering Lab, working at the intersection of computer science (methodology), urban science (application), and energy systems (domain). His work in urban energy informatics focuses on developing AI methods to model, predict, and optimize the coupling between mobility and energy systems, contributing to a more sustainable and efficient urban future.
Jiazu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory Global in Singapore, where he is part of the 'Powering the city' project co-led by Prof. Markus Schläpfer.
He is working on the analysis of “big” data with respect to human mobility patterns in cities, and mathematical models for local energy demand based on human mobility patterns. In addition, his research interests lie in building a framework to integrate photovoltaics, grid, and electric vehicles.