Contact

Email: G.Z.Dane@tue.nl

Department of the Built Environment
Eindhoven University of Technology
P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven

I am a Professor of Digitally-enabled Inclusive Urban Development at the Department of Built Environment of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Additionally, I acted as one of the Principal Investigators of the Urban Development Initiative (UDI)* from 2020 to 2024. I have a strong interdisciplinary background with a Ph.D. in “Urban Planning” and a MSc. in “Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Decision Making”. My areas of expertise include decision-support systems in urban planning, human-environment interaction, human behavior modeling and data analytics. By being the Principal Investigator of numerous large-scale European and national projects, I have gained vast experience with transdisciplinary research demonstrated by working with citizens, SMEs, NGOs and European cities (i.e. Eindhoven (NL), Helmond (NL), Bologna (IT), Lisbon (PT), Skopje (NMK)).

I believe that in order to enable sustainable urban transformations, cities should be seen as socio-technical systems and therefore can be addressed with citizen-centered and data-driven approaches. At the intersection of complex interactions between citizens, technology and artifacts, I am passionate about integrating citizens in the decision-making process of urban transformations via digital tools and (big) data. Therefore, my team and I (i) develop methods and digital tools as design and decision support systems for supporting public participation and citizen engagement in urban transformation processes, (ii) perform urban (big) data science within people as sensors concept for understanding and predicting citizens’ behavior, opinions and experiences towards urban interventions and (iii) research the impact of digitalization on sustainable urban developments.

At TU/e, I am also involved in supervising PhD, EngD, master’s, and bachelor’s students in the fields of urban planning and informatics. So far, I have (co)supervised 6 PhDs, 4 EngDs and more than 60 MScs who successfully obtained their diplomas. I have been leading several education innovation projects during which I developed online teaching materials (i.e. tutorials, quizzes, exercises) and included recent technologies (i.e. immersive virtual reality, online mapping tools, GPS, drones, mobile phone apps) in curriculum activities. As a lecturer, I have extensive experience in coordinating and teaching courses such as Smart Cities, Smart Healthy Urban Environments, Redevelopment of Problem Areas, Process Modeling and Information Management, Geographic Modeling of the Built Environment, and Research & Development. I am also a regular guest lecturer at Istanbul Technical University.

I have held numerous invited talks for various parties, including the Berlin European House, ICOMOS, Smart to Future Cities Conference, Dutch Design Week, Yonsei University, National University of Singapore, Chongqing University, Delft University of Technology and Istanbul Technical University. I have also organized several webinars, workshops and conferences, and I hold editorial functions at several academic journals.

*UDI is an alliance of TU/e, Brainport Development, City of Eindhoven, City of Helmond, Fraunhofer Institute.