Adventures in Urban Informatics
Steve Koonin is the founding director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, a consortium of academic, corporate and government partners that pursue research and education activities to develop and demonstrate informatics technologies for urban problems in the “living laboratory” of New York City. Prior to his NYU appointment, Koonin served as the second Under Secretary for Science at the US Department of Energy and on the staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses. Koonin was professor of Theoretical Physics at California Institute of Technology from 1975 to 2006 and was the Institute’s Provost for almost a decade. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the JASON advisory group, an independent group of scientists that advises the US government on matters of science and technology, mostly of a sensitive military nature.
Abstract: For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; in just a few more decades, the world’s population will exceed 9 billion, 70 percent of whom will live in cities. Enabling those cities to deliver services effectively, efficiently and sustainably while keeping their citizens safe, healthy, prosperous and well informed will be among the most important undertakings in this century. This talk will review how we are establishing a center for urban science and focus on bringing informatics to the study and operation of urban systems. It will touch on the rational, the structure, and the substance of the Center’s work and the ways in which it will enrich New York City and contribute to global issues. Taxis, lights, sewers, phones and buildings will all enter into the discussion in novel ways.
This Provost’s Lecture, co-sponsored by the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center, Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Turkana Basin Institute, will be held on Tuesday, May 5, at 4 pm in the Simons Center Auditorium, Room 103.
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