Biography:

Rounaq Basu is an Assistant Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, with an affiliation to the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Science and Planning, as well as dual master’s degrees in Transportation and City Planning, from MIT and a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from IIT Bombay with a focus on transportation engineering.

Basu’s research centers on sustainable urban mobility, with a particular focus on reducing auto-dependence in metropolitan areas. His work integrates urban analytics, econometrics, and agent-based microsimulations to inform policies that promote transportation equity, sustainable growth, and better urban systems. He is passionate about using these diverse tools to create more resilient and equitable cities that support the well-being of all residents.

Before joining Georgia Tech, Basu worked at the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, where he led multimodal planning efforts to improve transportation modes and services across the region. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of WalkMassachusetts, the first pedestrian advocacy organization in the U.S. He has also worked internationally with organizations like the World Bank, contributing to urban planning projects in cities across Latin America, India, Lebanon, and Singapore.

Basu brings a global perspective to his work, combining technical expertise with a deep commitment to addressing the real-world challenges of urban growth, equity, and sustainability.

Teaching Interest:

Professor Basu's teaching focuses on helping students develop a strong conceptual foundation and enhance their applied skills in the areas of transportation planning, integrated urban systems, and quantitative methods for planning. He teaches graduate courses such as Urban Transportation Planning, GIS & Remote Sensing, and Advanced Planning Methods. He also teaches a VIP at the undergraduate level called 'NO-HEAT.'

Research Interest:

Professor Basu's research focuses on understanding the barriers to reducing auto-dependence and examining planning and policy mechanisms through we can design more sustainable and resilient cities. His research involves understanding human behavior in the context of mobility and location choices as well as designing decision-support tools that inform local and regional planning and policy-making.

List of Recent Scholarly Work:

(1) Meister, A., Bashan, N., Basu, R., Shen, X., Wang, R., and Sevtsuk, A. (2025). The BostonWalks Study: A Longitudinal Travel Survey using Smartphone Tracking. Transportation. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-025-10637-2

(2) Basu, R., Colaninno, N., Alhassan, A., and Sevtsuk, A. (2024). Hot and bothered: Exploring the effect of heat on pedestrian route choice behavior and accessibility. Cities. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105435

(3) Colaninno, N., Basu, R., Hosseini, M., Alhassan, A., Liu, L., and Sevtsuk, A. (2024). A sidewalk-level urban heat risk assessment framework using pedestrian mobility and urban microclimate modeling. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083241280746

(4) Sevtsuk, A., Kollar, J., Pratama, D., Basu, R., Haddad, J., Alhassan, A., Chancey, B., Halabi, M., Makhlouf, R., and Abou-Zeid, M. (2024). Pedestrian-oriented development in Beirut: A framework for estimating urban design impacts on pedestrian flows through modeling, participatory design, and scenario analysis. Cities. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.104927

(5) Klein, N.J., Basu, R., and Smart, M.J. (2023). Transitions into and out of car ownership among low-income households in the United States. Journal of Planning Education and Research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X231163755

(6) Klein, N.J., Basu, R., and Smart, M.J. (2023). In the driver’s seat: Pathways to automobile ownership for lower-income households in the United States. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2023.100787

(7) Sevtsuk, A., Basu, R., Halpern, D., Hudson, A., Ng, K. and de Jong, J. (2022). A tale of two Americas: COVID-induced mobility changes within and across American cities. Cities. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.104006

(8) Basu, R. and Sevtsuk, A. (2022). How do street attributes affect willingness-to-walk? City-wide pedestrian route choice analysis using big data from Boston and San Francisco. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2022.06.007

(9) Sevtsuk, A. and Basu, R. (2022). The role of turns in pedestrian route choice: A clarification. Journal of Transport Geography. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2022.103392

(10) Sevtsuk, A., Chancey, B., Basu, R. and Mazzarello, M. (2022). Spatial structure of workplace and communication between colleagues: A study of E-mail exchange and spatial relatedness on the MIT campus. Social Networks. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2022.03.001

(11) Zhou, M., Li, J., Basu, R. and Ferreira, J. (2021). Creating spatially-detailed heterogeneous synthetic populations for agent-based microsimulation. Computers, Environment \& Urban Systems. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2021.101717

(12) Sevtsuk, A., Basu, R. and Chancey, B. (2021). We shape our buildings, but do they then shape us? A longitudinal analysis of pedestrian flows and development activity in Melbourne. PLoS One. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257534

(13) Sevtsuk, A., Hudson, A. Halpern, D., Basu, R., Ng, K. and de Jong, J. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on trips to urban amenities: Examining travel behavior changes in Somerville, MA. PLoS One. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252794

(14) Sevtsuk, A., Basu, R., Li, X. and Kalvo, R. (2021). A big data approach to understanding pedestrian route choice preferences: Evidence from San Francisco. Travel Behavior and Society. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2021.05.010

(15) Basu, R. and Ferreira, J. (2021). Sustainable mobility in auto-dominated Metro Boston: Challenges and opportunities post-COVID-19. Transport Policy, 103, 197-210. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.01.006

Degrees with Year of Award:

(1) Ph.D. in Urban Science and Planning, MIT (2022)

(2) Master of Science in Transportation, MIT (2019)

(3) Master in City Planning, MIT (2019)

(4) Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay (2016)