Professor Luís M.A. Bettencourt presented a free public lecture in Toronto on April 24, 2019 as part of the University of Toronto Department of Civil+Mineral Engineering 2018/2019 Distinguished Lecture series.
Bettencourt is Pritzker Director of the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago and a renowned urban theorist.
The event opened with remarks from Professor Heather MacLean, Acting Chair of the Department of Civil+Mineral Engineering, followed by remarks and introductions from Professor Eric Miller, UTTRI Director, and Dr. Judy Farvolden, UTTRI Executive Director.
Dr Judy Farvolden Executive Director @UofTTRI introduces speaker @BettencourtLuis #cities #urban #Sustainability pic.twitter.com/c0TGweq4ut
— Maureen Shuell (@MaureenShuell) April 24, 2019
Jane Jacobs’ principles sets stage for @BettencourtLuis lecture of #cities as complex systems#urban #planning #Transportation pic.twitter.com/w6H1PAamNG
— Maureen Shuell (@MaureenShuell) April 24, 2019
Today’s cities are complex systems and require cross disciplinary views to address our current environmental, economic, and social challenges @UofTTRI “Students lead a lot of the change in this process” @BettencourtLuis #CityBuilding #UrbanInnovation #PeopleCenteredDesign pic.twitter.com/6k69rXowEz
— Sheliza Esmail (@UrbanShel) April 24, 2019
Professor Bettencourt’s one-hour presentation on Cities and Complexity was followed by a discussion with UTTRI associated faculty Professor Steve Easterbrook and Dr. Enid Slack, moderated by Dr. Judy Farvolden.
Short Biography of Luís M.A. Bettencourt
Luís M. A. Bettencourt is Pritzker Director of the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution and the College. He is also an External Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute.
He was trained as a theoretical physicist and obtained his Licenciatura from Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon, Portugal) in 1992, and his PhD from Imperial College (University of London, UK) in 1996 for research in statistical and high-energy physics models of the early Universe. He has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), Los Alamos National Laboratory (Director’s Fellow and Slansky Fellow) and at MIT (Center for Theoretical Physics).
He has worked extensively on complex systems theory and on cities and urbanization, in particular. His research emphasizes the creation of new interdisciplinary synthesis to describe cities in quantitative and predictive ways, informed by classical theory from various disciplines and the growing availability of empirical data worldwide.
He is the author of over 100 scientific papers and several edited books. His research has been featured in leading media venues, such as the New York Times, Nature, Wired, New Scientist, and the Smithsonian.
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