Joseph Ferreira

Professor Ferreira was the founding director of the Planning Department's Computer Resource Lab and is now head of Urban Information Systems. He teaches analytical methods and computer-based modeling for planning and urban management including courses involving extensive use of geographic information systems (GIS) and database management. Both Prof. Ferreira's undergraduate degree (in electrical engineering) and his PhD degree (in operations research) are from MIT. His research uses GIS and interactive spatial analysis tools to model land use, transportation, and environmental interactions and to build sustainable information infrastructures for supporting urban and regional planning. He is a past-president of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and has been principal investigator of numerous research projects studying job-housing balance, urban performance measures, and urban information infrastructure. His current research includes the Future Urban Mobility project within the Singapore/MIT Alliance for Research and Technology where he is the SMART Research Professor of Urban Information Systems.