Aike Steentoft is a Research Assistant in the ‘Big Data-Informed Urban Design’ research project, informing urban design through big data analytics and complexity science. He studied Civil Engineering at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he earned his MSc degree in 2016. In his master’s thesis he analysed the seismic resilience of communities during the Nepalese earthquake events in 2015. Funded by the Swiss FLASH Research Program (CODEV), he stayed at IIT Bombay, India, from where he undertook several research expeditions to Nepal.

Research

His research aims to investigate the relationship between human mobility, urban form, and spatial economics. Simplified, it’s all about where and why economic activity takes place, and how that forms a city. He applies methods from complexity science to derive qualitative, predictive models that can support the urban planning process.