Wonyoung So

Wonyoung So, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Urban Technology at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. He studies how urban data and technology have been historically used to orchestrate, predict, and police public life and how the future of urban science can be different if we care more about empowering marginalized groups in the city. His research focuses on the role of contemporary technologies that perpetuate systemic racism and exclusion in housing in the US, with particular interests in rental housing, eviction, and mortgage lending. In 2011, Wonyoung co-founded the crowdfunding platform Tumblbug and demonstrated an alternative to the sustainability of the DIY movement. He was a research fellow at the Senseable City Lab at MIT, and he co-curated Seoul Libre Maps at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism to realize the vision of a citizen-organized data community. He was an MIT Presidential Fellow and worked as a research assistant and technical lead of the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT. He holds a PhD and a Master in City Planning at MIT DUSP and a BFA in Visual Communication Design at Kookmin University. His work has been recognized by the Information is Beautiful Awards, MIT Museum, IEEE, Fast Co. Design, The Atlantic, CNN, The Guardian, Seoul Museum of Art, and Wired, among others.