Urban Science Research Seminar: Daniel O'Brien

The Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) and the Department of Technology Management and Innovation (TMI) at NYU Tandon welcome you to attend a lecture by Daniel O'Brien, professor of public policy and urban affairs and criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University, as part of the Spring 2025 Urban Science Research Seminar Series. This event will take place in Room 233 (Co-Lab).

About the Speaker
Dr. Daniel T. O’Brien is a leader of the burgeoning field of “urban informatics”, which uses modern digital data to better understand and serve local communities. He is a Professor in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University and Director of the Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI), an interuniversity center that is an international model for advancing place-based, civically-engaged research that leverages data to benefit local communities.

Dr. O’Brien researches the physical and social conditions of neighborhoods and the citywide systems that serve them, often emphasizing questions of equity. This mission has allowed him to study many different subjects, including crime, education, transportation, climate resilience, public health, and public infrastructure, resulting in 50+ peer-reviewed publications and coverage from multiple media outlets, including Wired, The Boston Globe, and National Public Radio. He has raised $9M for his work, including grants from the National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and others. His book The Urban Commons(Harvard University Press; 2018) won the American Political Science Association’s Dennis Judd Best Book Award for work on urban and local politics.

Dr. O’Brien has designed programs for educating and supporting others in the practice of urban informatics. BARI’s annual conference convenes researchers, public officials, community-based organizations, and others engaged in data-driven research and practice in greater Boston. BARI’s Boston Data Portal makes research-ready data describing the people and places of Boston accessible to multiple levels of data literacy, from data scientists to everyday residents. BARI also offers public urban informatics education for community-based organizations and high school students. His textbook, Urban Informatics (Chapman Hall / CRC Press; 2022), which is based on curricula he developed for Northeastern University’s Masters of Science in Urban Informatics, is freely available online.

Visitor Information
This event will take place in Room 233 (Co-Lab) at 370 Jay St. Please visit the NYU Tandon website for directions and a campus map. Advance registration through Eventbrite 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. The Fall 2024 series is organized by Assistant Professors Takahiro Yabe, Qi Sun, and Graham Dove.

Additional speakers for the Spring 2025 Urban Science Research Seminar series include Greg Morrisett (Cornell Tech), Sybil Derrible (University of Illinois Chicago), and Ning Lin (Princeton).

Host or Publisher NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress