Jinhua Zhao named head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning | MIT News
Jinhua Zhao MCP ’04, SM ’04, PhD ’09 has been appointed head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), effective July 1. Zhao is the Class of 1941 Professor of Cities and Transportation at MIT.
In making the announcement, MIT School of Architecture and Planning director Hashim Sarkis noted that Zhao is a renowned transportation planner, teacher, and scholar, and a world leader in envisioning and shaping a better future for transportation.
“Jinhua is one of those rare scholars who moves seamlessly between cutting-edge research and real-world policy,” Sarkis said. “His work with governments and transportation organizations around the world is an example of what MIT’s impact can look like beyond our campus.”
Zhao succeeds Professor Christopher Zegras, who has served as head of the department since 2020. Under his leadership, DUSP increased opportunities for students to engage directly with communities and policy makers around the world and continued to strengthen its long-standing links between research and practice. “I want to express my gratitude to Chris Zegras for his excellent and quality leadership, especially in difficult times,” said Sarkis.
After receiving advanced degrees from MIT, Zhao joined the faculty of DUSP. He says he found the Society’s lack of familiarity and its culture of sharing ideas across the board encouraging.
“MIT is a small school in the best sense of the word,” Zhao said. “We have fewer boundaries than other universities – mentally and physically. Our ‘endless corridor’ connects us to so many subjects.”
Shaping movement systems around the world
That connection has been key to Zhao’s research and programs at MIT. Recognized as a global authority on mobility, his research has been applied to all of the world’s most complex mobility challenges. He and his team created the policy for Transport in London, Mass Transit Railway in Hong Kong, and Japan Railways. His research has had a positive impact on US transit authorities including Boston’s MBTA, Chicago Transit Authority, and Washington’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. He led the travel industry’s strategic planning for the future of automated and digital travel, and developed the autonomous vehicle (AV) deployment strategy in Singapore and the Middle East.
“All the cities I’ve worked with face the same tension: Technology is moving faster than institutions are designed to govern,” Zhao said. “My job was about filling that gap.”
At MIT, Zhao founded the MIT Mobility Initiative, which engages mobility and transportation researchers across the Institute and leaders in these fields from around the world. Zhao hosts the weekly MIT Mobility Forum via Zoom, with each discussion open to the public. What began as a small internal list of participants has grown into a global forum, attracting more than 200 clinicians, policy makers, and researchers every week from around the world. The huge interest in the topic doesn’t surprise Zhao.
“There is no single discipline that dominates transportation,” Zhao said. “AI and autonomous systems are remaking urban life faster than most institutions can adapt. The question is no longer what we know. Whether the people who need it most – municipal governments, transport agencies, public services – can access it when making decisions about transport. That’s why the forum exists.”
Zhao directs the JTL Urban Mobility Lab which integrates behavioral science and transportation technology to shape travel behavior, design transportation systems, and develop transportation policies. He is also the principal investigator in charge of Mens, Manus, and Machina, MIT’s initiative at the intersection of artificial intelligence, the future of work, and human learning, to develop tools and strategies for how cities, institutions, and economies can be designed to ensure that AI augments, rather than displaces, the people in them.
Global agenda for DUSP
“If you look at the global agenda, what are the problems people are facing?” Zhao asked. “An aging society; AI and its impact on jobs; the energy crisis; traffic congestion. These are some of the issues that people feel connected to because they are in our cities and communities. I want DUSP to connect with city leaders and share our research and insights.”
As he prepares to step into his role as head of the department, Zhao says he would like the research done within DUSP to quickly reach those who need it most: the planners, officials, and engineers who make decisions in cities today. Transport authorities responsible for AV integration; city government rethinking old infrastructure; the leading transport minister navigating the implications of AI policy – these are the regions that Zhao believes DUSP should be in dialogue with.
“We know a lot about how cities grow, how people move, and how that will change. The question is whether the people responsible for making these changes – in city halls, transport agencies, government departments – can access what we know, if they need it.”
