QGIS

Laura Schmahmann

Instructor
City and Regional Planning

I am a PhD Candidate within the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. My dissertation explores the political economy of warehouse development across California, focusing on two case studies - the Inland Empire and North San Joaquin Valley. I am also a Graduate Student Researcher within the Labor Management Partnerships team at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. I hold a Bachelor of Planning (Honours Class 1) and Master of Philosophy (Planning and Urban Development) both from the University of New South Wales.

Suraj Nair

Data Science Fellow
School of Information

I am a PhD Student at the School of Information. My research interests lie at the intersection of development economics and machine learning, with a focus on the use of large scale digital data and new computational tools to study pressing issues in global development.

Sharon Green

Data Science Fellow
Demography

Sharon Green is an epidemiologist and sociologist who studies population health. Her research examines how policies influence health disparities, how migration affects migrant-sending areas, and how social determinants shape mid- and late-life health inequities. Her work has been published in leading journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, and American Journal of Public Health. Sharon earned her PhD in Sociomedical Sciences and Sociology and her MPH from Columbia University as well as her BA from Johns Hopkins...

Melike Sümertaş

Data Science Fellow
History

I hold a PhD in History from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and B.A and M.A degrees from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Department of Architecture, and Program in Architectural History. My research focuses on the urban/architectural/visual culture of the late Ottoman Empire and its capital city Istanbul, with a particular interest in the Greek-Orthodox community. My current project in the History Department of UC Berkeley under the umbrella of the Istanpolis collaboration led by Prof. Christine Philliou, focuses on utilizing digital humanities tools for urban/...

Michael Pearce, MA

Instructor
D-Lab

Michael is passionate about cities, technology, and real estate. He has worked in commercial real estate for 10+ years, has a Masters in City Planning, and stared and ran a mapping startup.

Yiyi He

Consultant
Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning

Yiyi He is a Ph.D. candidate from the College of Environmental Design at University of California, Berkeley. She received her bachelor’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Nanjing University and her master’s degree in Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley. She is currently working as an AI Resident at GoogleX. Prior to this, she worked as a consultant for the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery at the World Bank and a researcher for the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management and Federal Aviation Administration Consortium in Aviation Operations Research. Her...

Irene Farah

Instructor
City and Regional Planning

Irene is a PhD student in City and Regional Planning. Her research interests lie at the intersection of urban geography, political science, and public health. In particular, she studies street vendors in Mexico City and how the spatiality and politics of their working conditions impact their access to healthy food. She strongly believes in connecting with other social scientists to share perspectives on how to use technology to acquire greater knowledge of social phenomena.

Seyi Olojo

Instructor, Researcher
School of Information

Seyi is a PhD Student in the School of Information and is a member of the Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity Group. Her research broadly explores the problem space of digital memory, specifically the social discourse surrounding algorithms, ethics, and engagement. Additionally, her work often explores histories of quantification and the politics of categories within emerging technologies. She uses a mixed methods approach to research; this includes ethnography, interviews, grounded theory, surveys, data analysis and values-based design. Here at the D-lab, she leads the qualitative...

Brooks Jessup, Ph.D.

Data Science Fellow
History

Brooks received his Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley and was trained in Data Science at General Assembly. His work applies digital tools and methods to the study of modern cities and urban issues. At D-Lab, he teaches and consults on data analytics, machine learning, geospatial analysis, and natural language processing with Python and SQL.