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Cross-Cutting
Cities connect to their environment through infrastructure, comprised of complex and interconnected physical, technological, and social systems. David's research and teaching focus on how to demonstrate new opportunities for planners and policymakers to shape this relationship within these systems using technology, data, and analysis. Much of his work seeks to assist a wide range of actors -- local policymakers, planners, advocates, as well as academics -- directly with design, planning, policymaking, and policy implementation.
His publications can be found on his Google Scholar profile and the MIT D-space repository, both linked at right. Previous projects (and funders) include:
David is currently working on a book contracted with the University of Chicago Press on alternative governance of the electric grid, due in 2021. Current areas of work and research collaboration include:
At MIT, David teaches classes on urban technology (11.007), research methods (11.800), and infrastructure (11.381). David is also chair of the DUSP urban science major (11-6); course 11 advisor for the Energy Studies Minor, offered by the MIT Energy Initiative; and is a climate coordinator for the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. David is also a faculty member of the MIT Energy Initiative, the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, the Council for the Uncertain Human Future, the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the Roosevelt Project of the MIT Center for Economic and Environmental Policy, and the MIT Committee on Undergraduate Performance.
David taught previously at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University, and worked in structural engineering, real estate finance, and as a policy analyst in the city governments of New York and Seattle. He holds a B.S. from Yale University in physics; a M.S. from Cornell University in applied and engineering physics; a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in city design and social science; and from the University of Washington in Seattle, a Ph.D. in urban design and planning and a certificate in social science and statistics.