Guiding Tree Positions Intelligently in Philadelphia and Across Wider Regions
Frank Chen: Urban Planner with a Mission to Make Cities Safer and Healthier
Frank Chen, a graduate student at the Weitzman School of Design, is on a mission to improve cities for societal benefit. With a background in urban and rural planning, Chen is pursuing degrees in Master of City Planning and Master of Urban Spatial Analytics (MUSA) at the prestigious university.
Chen's fascination with cities, maps, and urban spaces began in his youth, nurtured by his parents who are architects based in Hangzhou, China. Exposed to various landmark structures and urban spaces, Chen developed a deep appreciation for the built environment.
His career goal is to use his skills to make cities safer and healthier for all, a goal that becomes increasingly vital as urban migration rises and cities face challenges such as heatwaves.
One of Chen's current projects is a street tree mapping initiative. The project aims to address the challenge of heatwaves, a pressing issue in cities worldwide, by balancing the intricate trade-off between tree shade and tree location, all with pedestrian well-being in mind.
In the data collection process, Chen accounted for real-world constraints like distance to buildings and avoiding street poles and intersections. He is mentored by Weitzman faculty members Xiaojiang Li and Eric Delmelle, who have offered guidance and support.
Chen's mentors at Tianjin University, Li Wei and Zhang Min, encouraged him to consider project limitations with an eye for urban pragmatism. This advice has been instrumental in shaping Chen's approach to urban planning.
Chen is also motivated by the potential for his research to be used by the city government or companies to help Philadelphia residents. He plans to incorporate what he did for the tree project to develop spatial optimization tools and models, combined with other geospatial data analytics methods, to strengthen his research.
In addition to the street tree mapping project, Chen has led several projects at Penn that combine city planning with urban spatial analysis. Chen is also grateful for the guidance he received from Delmelle, who offered insights from a spatial optimization perspective, having previously taught Chen in a MUSA course.
Chen's work is also influenced by Penn alums Lin Huiyin and Liang Sicheng, who inspired him to pursue a Ph.D. focused on the intersection of geography and urban planning. Chen looks forward to continuing his research and making a positive impact on urban spaces.
Li trained Chen to code for the visual mapping component of the project using GPU computation methods. Chen's ultimate goal is to generate new solutions that help make cities more sustainable and livable for all.
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