My research focuses on the urban climate: the interactions between the atmosphere, the built environment, and the people living in it. Human society has traditionally been influenced by the weather and the longer term climate, but we are currently living in an age where the reverse is especially true: human society visibly changing the weather, especially in those areas where human activity is concentrated: the city.
U​​​​​rban heat islands, air pollution and overuse of water are a few examples of urban climate problems, that we don't always grasp to their full extent. Traditional meteorological observations attempt to capture a representative state of the atmosphere, and urban areas are so variable, changing drastically in any direciton you look, that all measurements inevitably capture the local scale, and not 'the' city. The modern age of information provides us opportunities to solve this data shortage: by cleverly using (smart) devices and telecom infrastructure, we can gather and filter vast amounts of low-quality data to gain valuable information: opportunistic sensing. Similarly, using citizen science and crowdsourcing methods we can get non-standard data from all over the city to learn about the urban climate.
​​​​​​​These methods form the core of my research into understanding and describing the urban climate across all scales: from someone's backyard all the way to entire large city areas. This is all done in context of the TU Delft's Climate Action programme, where I lead the Cooling Cities flagship under the Climate Adaptation theme, bridging gaps between disciplines to adapt the city of today to the climate of tomorrow.

Read more