Dr. Junfeng Jiao

Biography

Junfeng Jiao is an Associate Professor in the Community Regional Planning program and the founding director of the Urban Information Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in Urban Design Planning from the University of Washington. His research focuses on utilizing information technologies such as GIS, GPS, drones, smartphones, and wearable devices to quantify built environments and understand their impact on people's behavior, including travel, physical activity, and eating habits. He is particularly interested in how individuals react to and reflect upon their built environments where they live, work, and play. Jiao has investigated how built environments affect people's access to grocery stores, transit facilities, and bicycle infrastructure, as well as how people describe cities in cyberspace, particularly through platforms like Twitter. He coined the term 'Transit Desert' and developed measurement methods for analyzing this phenomenon. His extensive research on Transit Food Deserts has received media attention from numerous outlets including Associated Press, NBC, and NPR. Jiao's projects have been funded by organizations such as NIH and UT Austin, and his scholarly work is published in reputable journals including the Journal of Urban Planning and Development and the American Journal of Public Health. He also serves as co-chair of the Analytical Methods & Computer Applications track for the ACSP conference and is on the editorial boards of various academic journals.

Research Interests