Dr. Psyllidis, A.

Achilleas Psyllidis is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

Academic Background

Achilleas Psyllidis is an Assistant Professor of Location Intelligence and Spatial Analysis at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). He leads the Urban Analytics Lab at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. He directs the Social Urban Data Lab at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions as a Research Fellow. In addition, he is affiliated with the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities.

His research spans the fields of city design, urban mobility, and spatial data science. He focuses on measuring and evaluating urban design qualities that contribute to more walkable, sustainable, healthy, and welcoming cities for all. He is convinced that in order for cities to achieve their public health and sustainability goals, quantifiable targets and standards must be developed and consistently measured. As a result, he develops evidence-based measurable indicators, which are frequently co-created with stakeholders, to help cities transition to a healthier, fairer, and more sustainable future for all citizens. He incorporates these metrics into software tools to assist designers, planners, and policy-makers in assessing pedestrian accessibility, walkability, safety, playability, and other perceived qualities of the physical environment. To identify, represent, and prioritize the factors that ensure our urban spaces are accessible, welcoming, and healthy, he brings together approaches from urban science, public health, and systems thinking with cutting-edge mobility research and spatial data science methods. He is involved in several national, European, and international research projects about cities, mobility, environmental exposures, health, and well-being (e.g., Equal-Life, PERISCOPE, Social Distancing Dashboard, Designing Rhythms for Social Resilience, Urban Digital Twins.

Before joining the IDE faculty, he was a postdoctoral researcher within the Web Information Systems (WIS) group, at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science (EEMCS), TU Delft, between 2016 and 2019. He holds a PhD in Spatial Data Science from TU Delft (2016), as a scholar of the Onassis Foundation, the European Union Social Fund (ESF), the Greek State Scholarships Foundation, the Foundation for Education and European Culture, and the A.G. Leventis Foundation. He has also served as research affiliate of the Joint Research Center for Spatial Information (Wuhan University & TU Delft), and of the Joint Research Center for Urban Systems and Environment (South China University of Technology & TU Delft).

Education

• 2012 – 2016
  PhD in Spatial Data Science, Delft University of Technology. Thesis: "Revisiting Urban Dynamics through Social Urban Data"
• 2009 – 2011
  MPhil in Spatial Planning (Summa Cum Laude, Highest GPA), National Technical University of Athens
• 2001 – 2007
  Dipl. Eng. (equivalent to MSc) in Architectural Engineering (Summa Cum Laude, Highest GPA), National Technical University of Athens

Experience

• 2020 – Present
  Assistant Professor of Location Intelligence and Spatial Analysis
  Knowledge and Intelligence Design group, Industrial Design Engineering faculty, Delft University of Technology
• 2016 – Present
  Research Fellow and Head of the Social Urban Data Lab (SUDL), Urban Data and Intelligence, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS)
• 2016 – Present
  Research Affiliate, Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Center for BOLD (Big, Open, Linked Data) Cities
• 2016 – 2019
  Postdoctoral Researcher, Web Information Systems group, faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science, Delft University of Technology
• 2017 – 2018
  Research Affiliate, Joint Research Center for Spatial Information, Delft University of Technology and Wuhan University
• 2014 – 2016
  Research Affiliate, Joint Research Center for Urban Systems and Environment, Delft University of Technology and South China University of Technology
• 2012 – 2016
  PhD Researcher, faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology
• 2012 – 2013
  Lecturer on Future Cities, The Why Factory, MVRDV and the Urbanism department of the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology
• 2010 – 2012
  Assistant Lecturer, Urban & Regional Planning, and Building Science Labs, National Technical University of Athens