Andrew Sonta: Data-driven integration of social and environmental perspectives for a sustainable built environment

The Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) at NYU Tandon welcomes you to attend the lecture "Data-driven integration of social and environmental perspectives for a sustainable built environment" by Andrew Sonta, Assistant Professor at the EPFL. This event will be held in Room 1201 at 370 Jay Street.
About the Lecture
The built environment has a dual set of responsibilities. On one hand, given buildings’ outsized impact on the environment, it is imperative to improve sustainability of construction and efficiency of operation. On the other hand, our buildings serve a fundamentally human purpose: they should support our human-centric goals such as well-being and productivity. To advance our understanding of holistic building performance and potential, we must take a research perspective that integrates these two sets of responsibilities. This talk will cover research at EPFL’s ETHOS Lab that works toward this integration. Using data from sensors and open sources enables the development of empirical, scalable, and socially aware methods that computationally analyze human-building interactions to improve built environment design and operation. The research presented works toward a vision where explicit modeling and analysis of human systems can help us transform the way we design and manage our built environment to support our social and environmental goals.
About the Speaker
Andrew Sonta was appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor at EPFL in September 2022. He directs the ETHOS Lab: Engineering and Technology for Human Oriented Sustainability. Prior to joining EPFL, he received his PhD from Stanford University’s Sustainable Design and Construction program, studying human-building interaction in commercial buildings. He was then a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute, working in the smart cities focus area. He has also taught in the architecture program at the University of San Francisco. His work spans engineering, design, social science, and data science and aims to address urban sustainability challenges through a multidisciplinary lens. At EPFL, the mission of the ETHOS Lab is to use data, engineering, and design to create interventions in the built environment that integrate our social and environmental goals.
Visitor Information
This event will be held in Room 1201 at 370 Jay St. Please visit the NYU Tandon website for directions and a campus map. Advance registration through Luma is required for campus access at NYU for external guests.
About the Urban Science Research Seminar Series
The Center for Urban Science + Progress’s annual Research Seminar series features leading voices in the growing field of urban informatics examining real-world challenges facing cities and urban environments around the world.