Biography:

Subhro Guhathakurta is the Harry West Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning. He joined Georgia Tech in 2011 as the director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems, which was renamed the Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization (CSPAV), and then the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA), under his leadership. He was named chair of the School of City & Regional Planning in 2018 and completed his term in 2021.

Professor Guhathakurta was previously associate director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University (ASU) and among the founding faculty members of ASU’s School of Sustainability. He was instrumental in developing the Urban Modeling and Simulation Lab in ASU’s College of Design. He is an author of 6 books and monographs and over 75 scientific papers. His editorial contributions include books such as "Integrated Urban and Environmental Models: A Survey of Current Applications and Research" (Springer-Verlag, 2003), "Visualizing Sustainable Planning" (Springer 2009), and “The Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education” (Routledge 2019). He was a Co-Editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research (2012-2016) and is serving on editorial boards of several leading planning journals including the Journal of American Planning Association (JAPA). Prof. Guhathakurta is a recipient of the Mercator Professorship by DFG (German National Science Foundation) to conduct research in visualizing unstructured data at the Technische Universität, Kaiserslautern, Germany. He has held visiting appointments at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at the University College London; the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore; the Center for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures at the University of Queensland in Brisbane; and served as a high-end expert for the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

Specialization Area: 

Geographic Information Science and Technology

Teaching Interest:

Professor Guhathakurta's recent teaching roles have primarily focused on the Ph.D. program, where he routinely teaches the course on “urban and regional theory” (CP8300). This class discusses the foundational theoretical propositions of urban growth and development through the lens of emerging urban issues and policy. He has also taught "Introduction to Urban Analytics," “Environmental GIS,” and “Introduction to Land use” in various years.

Research Interest:

As director of a research center (CURA), Prof Guhathakurta's research has involved leading multidisciplinary teams of academics, students, and practitioners to pursue externally funded research in the domains of spatial analytics, planning, and policy. These projects range in size and complexity from small ($50,000 and less) to large, multi-year ($1 million +), sponsored by various local, state, and federal agencies. These projects typically involve both discovery and fundamental contributions to the literature and application development (mostly software tools and data) that are used by stakeholders and other researchers.

List of Recent Scholarly Work:

1. Lieu S. J., Koo, BW, Huang, UJ, and Guhathakurta, S. (2026) Automated Detection and Classification of Bike Lanes Using Multimodal Imagery. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2025.101817. 
2. Liu, K., Guhathakurta, S., Han, C., Hittinger, E., Phoung, S., & Williams, E. (2025). The Impact of Online Shopping on Retail Building Space and Energy Demand in the U.S. Energies, 18(23), 6178. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18236178.
3. Han, C., Lieu, S. J., Hwang, U., & Guhathakurta, S. (2025). Do streetscapes still matter for customer ratings of eating and drinking establishments in car-dependent cities? Journal of Urban Design, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2025.2541953.
4. Han, C., Guhathakurta, S., Hittinger, E., Liu, K., Phoung, S., & Williams, E. (2025). Empirical assessment of the relationship between teleworking frequency and residential energy use in the US: multilevel modeling and time use comparisons. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ade3fa.  
5. Lieu S. J., Guhathakurta S. (2025). Exploring pedestrian route choice preferences by demographic groups: Analysis of street attributes in Chicago. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 195:104437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2025.104437. 
6. Lieu, S. J., & Guhathakurta, S. (2025). A novel approach for estimating sidewalk width from street view images and computer vision. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 23998083251369602.
7. Choi, Y., & Guhathakurta, S. (2024). Unraveling the diversity in transit-oriented development. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 182, 104020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2024.104020. 
8. Liu, K., Guhathakurta, S., Han, C., Hittinger, E., Phoung, S., & Williams, E. (2024). How much is US office building space reduced per teleworker?. Findings. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.115400. 
9. Hwang, U., Lieu, S. J., Guan, H., Dalmeijer, K., van Hentenryck, P., & Guhathakurta, S. (2024). Measuring Transit Equity of an On-Demand Multimodal Transit System. Journal of the American Planning Association, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2024.2323470. 
10. Lee, K., Molan, M., Pande, A., Hwang, U., Guhathakurta, S., Nkanor, M., & Sergio, B. (2024). Assessing the impact of bicycle infrastructure on safety and operations using microsimulation and surrogate safety measures: A case study in Downtown Atlanta. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijtst.2024.06.002. 
11. Han, C., Hwang, U., and Guhathakurta, S. (2024). Can Thanksgiving Destinations Predict Climate Migration Patterns? Findings, June. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.117432.
12. Han, C., Seshadri, P., Ding, Y., Posner, N., Agrawal, A., Lerch, A., and Guhathakurta, S. (2024). Understanding pedestrian movement using urban sensing technologies: the promise of audio-based sensors. Urban Informatics, 3, 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44212-024-00053-9. 
13. Hwang, U., Kim, I., Guhathakurta, S., & Van Hentenryck, P. (2024). Comparing different methods for connecting bike lanes to generate a complete bike network and identify potential complete streets in Atlanta. Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research, 2, 100015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcmr.2024.100015.
14. Phoung, S., Hittinger, E., Guhathakurta, S., & Williams, E. (2024). Forecasting macro-energy demand accounting for time-use and telework. Energy Strategy Reviews, 51, 101264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2023.101264.
15. Koo, B. W., Hwang, U. and Guhathakurta, S. (2023). Streetscapes as part of servicescapes: Can walkable streetscapes make local businesses more attractive? Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 106 (2023): 102030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2023.102030.  

Degrees with Year of Award:

    Ph. D.    City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley         December 1991
    MCRP    Community and Regional Planning, Iowa State University, Ames,     August 1987
    B.Arch.    Architecture, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India                    March 1985