Rate My Professor João Porto de Albuquerque

Professor João Porto de Albuquerque is Director of the Urban Big Data Centre and Professor in Urban Analytics at the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. He is a geographer and computer scientist with an interdisciplinary background, holding a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Campinas and Technical University of Dortmund (2006), a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Campinas (2001, highest GPA), and studies in Social Sciences and Philosophy there. His research focuses on participatory urban analytics, combining participatory methods such as citizen science and participatory GIS with geo-computational data science to address inequalities in data and society, promoting socially just urban transformations, climate resilience, and disaster risk management in cities across the global North and South. He has secured over £8 million as principal investigator from funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, UKRI, ESRC, EPSRC, and EU H2020, leading projects like IDEAMAPS and PACHA in collaboration with partners in Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, and others.

Prior to joining Glasgow in 2021, he served as Professor and Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick (2019-2021), Associate Professor at Warwick’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (2016-2018), Assistant Professor at the University of São Paulo (2008-2015), and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg via Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2006-2008). Major awards include the ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2023 for Outstanding Societal Impact (Waterproofing Data project), Jack Dangermond Award 2021 for best paper in ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, Turing Fellowship (2018-2021), and DFG Excellence Programme Fellowship (2013-2016). Key publications feature “The relationship between greenspace and the mental wellbeing of adults: A systematic review” (2018, 622 citations), “A Geographic Approach for Combining Social Media and Authoritative Data towards Identifying Useful Information for Disaster Management” (2015, 511 citations), “Impact of the societal response to COVID-19 on access to healthcare for non-COVID-19 health issues in slum communities” (2020, 502 citations), and “Dialogic data innovations for sustainability transformations and flood resilience: the case for waterproofing data” (2023). He has delivered keynotes at GIScience 2023 and UN-Habitat, serves on UKRI International Strategic Advisory Board and Talent Panel, and holds editorial roles including Associate Editor for Frontiers in Earth Systems and boards for npj Urban Sustainability.