Sybil Derrible: Solving the Biggest Infrastructure Challenges of This Century
The Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) at NYU Tandon welcomes you to attend the lecture "Solving the Biggest Infrastructure Challenges of This Century" by Sybil Derrible, Professor in Urban Engineering and the Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. This event is hosted as part of the Spring 2025 Urban Science Research Seminar Series and CUSP's 2025 Applied Urban Science Showcase.
About the Lecture
Solving the Biggest Infrastructure Challenges of This Century
Virtually every activity people engage in involves infrastructure in one way or another. The lifestyles of most people, especially in high-income countries like the U.S., would not be possible without constant and reliable access to infrastructure—including transport, water, wastewater, electricity, gas, solid waste, and telecommunication infrastructure. Yet, operating and maintaining existing infrastructure systems requires more energy and resources than the Earth can provide. Our society has never been so technologically advanced, yet it has never been so unsustainable and vulnerable. Coupled with climate change and important societal shifts such as depopulation, a new infrastructure paradigm must be developed to redefine how infrastructure is planned, designed, built, operated, and maintained. In this talk, we will first briefly go over each infrastructure to gain a system’s view of how infrastructure works. We will then see that they all are deeply interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. Although these interconnections are intuitive, we will see that they are complex and often overlooked. Leveraging these interdependences and turning them into assets through smart and multifunctional approaches can help solve some of the biggest infrastructure challenges of this century.
About the Speaker
Sybil Derrible is a Professor in Urban Engineering and the Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago. His research is at the nexus of civil engineering, urban metabolism, and data and complexity science to help design livable, sustainable, and resilient cities. He is the author of the popular science book The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives (Prometheus Books 2025) and the textbook Urban Engineering for Sustainability (MIT Press 2019). He received a U.S. NSF CAREER Award for his work and the Huber Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Infrastructure Systems and for Scientific Reports, and he is a Fellow of the ASCE.
Visitor Information
This lecture will take place in the Pfizer Auditorium located in the Bern Dibner Building at 5 Metrotech Center. 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 Spring 2025 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 Daniel O'Brien (Northeastern University), Cynthia Zeng (NYU Stern School of Business Abu Dhabi), Greg Morrisett (Cornell Tech), and Ning Lin (Princeton University).