Resilient Urban Networks Lab
We develop computational models to study the resilience of urban complex systems
Opportunities
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PhD students: We welcome applicants who are motivated to address urban challenges through the development of data-driven computational models of urban complex systems and/or the creation of innovative data governance mechanisms. Interested candidates should contact Dr. Yabe at takahiroyabe@nyu.edu titled "PhD in RUN Lab: [Last name]" with a resume and cover letter that clearly outline 1) your motivation for applying to this position and 2) the research questions or topics that excite you the most.
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Visiting PhD students: We welcome visiting PhD students from across the globe. Please email Dr. Yabe your CV, a brief description of your research plans, and how you will fund your stay at NYU.
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Master / Undergraduate students at NYU: We regularly hire research assistants in our lab as RAs. Please check out advertisements in Handshake. Please email Dr. Yabe after applying.
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Postdocs: Keep an eye out for CUSP and TMI Faculty Fellow positions (example posting).
Current Members
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor
Takahiro Yabe, Ph.D.
Taka is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Technology Management and Innovation (TMI) and the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at New York University. He is a computational social scientist, urban data scientist, and civil engineer interested in the resilience of urban complex systems and socioeconomic networks.
Postdoctoral Associates
Postdoc at TMI
Ekin Ugurel, Ph.D.
Ekin is a Postdoctoral Researcher in TMI and CUSP at NYU. His work develops machine learning frameworks to model decision-making in transportation and urban systems. He earned his PhD in Transportation Engineering from the University of Washington, focusing on probabilistic modeling, interpretability, and uncertainty-aware methods for travel behavior and transportation planning.
Postdoc at TMI (co-mentored with Prof Joline Uichanco)
Xiyu Pan, Ph.D.
Xiyu studies the intersection of urban flooding, human mobility, and accessibility to critical infrastructure. With a background in both civil engineering and computational science, he uses machine learning for risk estimation, predictive modeling, and urban sensing to improve decision-making. He received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
PhD Students
PhD student
Vaidehi Raipat
Vaidehi is an architect and urban designer with seven years of experience in designing and planning livable spaces. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Urban Science at NYU. Her interests lie in advancing policy-responsive research in the spatial and temporal analysis of human behavior and the complex patterns arising from human and physical interactions.
PhD student (co-advised with Constantine Kontokosta)
Callie Clark
Callie is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and an Urban Systems PhD Candidate at NYU. Callie earned both a master’s in Systems Engineering and a bachelor’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include human mobility, neighborhood dynamics, segregation, and equitable access to resources.
PhD student
DongHak Lee
DongHak is a Ph.D. student in TMI and CUSP at NYU. His research interests include social dynamics, community development, and the development of digitized urban models using quantitative methodologies. His recent work focuses on modeling individual-level interactions to address urban issues. He holds a master’s degree in Regional Science from Cornell University, and B.S. and B.I.S. from Pusan National University, South Korea.
PhD student
Boyang Li
Boyang is a Ph.D. student at NYU TMI and CUSP. His research focuses on human spatial decision-making and urban complex systems, with an emphasis on modeling multi-scale spatial relationships. He integrates spatial representation, positional encoding, and data-driven methods to understand spatial behavior and urban dynamics. He received his B.S. from Wuhan University and M.S. in Smart Cities and Big Data from Peking University.
Master Students
Master student
Andrew Hwang
Andrew is a Master's student at NYU CUSP. His interest includes how AI influences career decisions and their effects on larger systems like organizations, industries, and cities. His recent work analyzes the causal effect of mid-career Master's degrees on career outcomes using LinkedIn data. He holds a B.Com from the University of Pretoria and has industry experience at KPMG and a last-mile delivery startup in Korea.
Master student
Sizhe (Alex) Xu
Sizhe (Alex) Xu is an incoming PhD student in Computer Science and a Master's student in Urban Data Science at New York University. His research interests include multimodal intelligence, urban representation learning, and spatial supersensing. Recently, his work has focused on redundant feature suppression, urban LLM agents, and knowledge distillation. He's an enthusiast of classical music, philosophy, and Elden Ring.
Master student
Yixuan Hong
Yixuan Hong is a Master’s student in Urban Data Science at New York University. Her research interests focus on urban mobility, economic systems, and data-driven modeling. She previously worked in equity research, conducting data-driven analysis of financial markets and industries, and holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Information Resource Management from Renmin University of China.
Master student
Qingyi Zheng
Qingyi Zheng is a Master’s student at NYU CUSP. Her research explores how AI systems and platform recommendation algorithms influence urban mobility and consumer behavior. Her current work examines the behavioral impact of AI-driven recommendations on local decision-making, integrating computational methods with a social science perspective.
Master student
Shangyi (Shawn) Guo
Shangyi Guo is a second-year M.S. student at NYU CUSP. He's interested in revealing how urban & environmental structures shape collective human behavior at different scales with methods from data science, complex system, and AI. Outside research, he enjoys exploring the nature and playing guitar.
Visiting Researchers
PhD student at NYU Shanghai
Zhe (Oliver) Wang
Zhe Wang is a PhD student in Computer Science at New York University. His research interests include high-performance computing and fusion of multi-source spatial data. His recent work focuses on spatial representation learning for GeoAI. He received his BS in GIS from Nanjing Normal University and his MS in GIS from Wuhan University.
RUN Lab Alumni
Postdocs:
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Marcel Moran, Faculty Fellow at CUSP (2024-2025). Currently Assistant Professor at San Jose State University (2025 Fall -).
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Zhaoxi Zhang, Faculty Fellow at CUSP (2024-2025). Currently Assistant Professor at the University of Florida (2025 Fall -).
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Mehak Sachdeva, Faculty Fellow at CUSP (2024-2025). Currently Assistant Professor at Florida State University (2025 Fall -).
Visiting Students:
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Mavin De Silva, visiting PhD student (2024). Currently PhD student at Nagaoka University of Technology.
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Sayaka Sugiyama, visiting PhD student (2025). Currently Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Tokyo.
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Xiaotong Xu, visiting PhD student (2025). Currently PhD student at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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Timur Naushirvanov, visiting PhD student (2025). Currently PhD student at Central European University.
Master Students:
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Malik Salman, Master student at CUSP. Graduate Research Assistant, 2024 Fall - 2025 Summer
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Jiayi Weng, Master student at CUSP. Graduate Research Assistant, 2024 Fall - 2025 Summer
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Anni Zheng, Master Student at Center for Data Science. Graduate Research Assistant, 2024 Summer.
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Akanksha Patil, Master Student at CUSP. Guided Study student, 2024 Summer.
Snapshots from Lab meetings and conferences
