Academy Fellow

Professor Chris Pettit is the Director of the City Futures Research Centre UNSW – an internationally renowned institute which has been conducting scholarly applied public interest research on our cities since 2005. Prof Pettit is also the current Chair of the Board of Directors for CUPUM (Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management) the premier international academic forum (30 years old) at the intersection of digital technologies, data science, urban planning and city shaping. He is global advisor to PGIM’s RealAssetX Lab. He is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia’s National Plantech Advisory Committee, the Federal Government of Australia’s Urban Policy Network and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) Scientific Committee.

Prof Pettit’s expertise is in the convergence data, technology and planning. He has published 200 + papers, given numerous keynote addresses at conferences around the world and is according to the Stanford-Elsevier 2024 ranking is one of the top 2% scientists in the world. Prof Pettit and his team put together the first 30 minute city dashboard using the Opal card data in 2016. More recently he led the development of the Transport Oriented Development Atlas and Dashboard for Sydney, presenting this the Premier, Planning and Housing Minister in August 2023. He was an active contributor to the Academy’s Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure 2024-33. 

His research has resulted in the development and application of a number of digital platform which are available for research, government and industry to use to make better planning decisions. These include:

• The online What if? Digital Planning Tool – open-source software used in 22 Countries with over 250 users.

• The Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer Toolkit (RAISE) toolkit – for exploring cost effective urban futures.

• MapAI – a generative AI platform to democratise geospatial analysis

• City Analytics Lab (CAL) – A digital planning supported facility at UNSW Kensington Campus which has hosted more than 350 workshops & seminars, with 5,000+ participants.

• Housing Analytics Lab (HAL) – A state of the art facility, hosted by Commonwealth Bank of Australia South Everleigh to assist housing policy-makers with evidence driven solutions.

• National Housing Data Exchange – geoportal providing access to housing data across Australia.

• CityViz – a data visualisation and analytics platform to make urban big data more visible.

• Bikeability Scenario Planning Tool – to improve the bikeability of our cities 

Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney (2020- present)

Professor of Urban Science, UNSW Sydney (2015-present)

Associate Professor – Urban Informatics University of Melbourne (2011-2015)

Strategic Implementation Coordinator – AURIN (2011-2015)

Memberships: Planning Institute of Australia

Fellowship: PLuS Alliance Fellow 2016-2020

2024 MapAI – Technical Excellence Award, NSW Geospatial Excellence Award. 

2024 MapAI – Innovation Award – Medium to Large Business, NSW Geospatial Excellence Award.

2024 Outstanding Paper Award – “City Digital Twins: Their Maturity Level and Differentiation from 3D City Models” Big Earth Data International Journal 

2023 Award for Research Commercialisation for Value Australia - Cooperative Research Australia Awards for Excellence in Innovation.

2022 Best Paper – Smart Data Smart Cities International Conference, Sydney October . Lu, Y. Laffan, S. Pettit, C. The Integration of Cellular Automata and What if? for Scenario Planning: Future Residential Expansion in the City of Ipswich 

2022 The Value Australia Project - SIBA/GITA Asian Pacific Spatial Excellence NSW Award for Innovation (Medium to Large Business).

2021 Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer (RAISE) Toolkit- PIA National Research and Teaching Excellence Award

2020 Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer (RAISE) Toolkit- PIA NSW Research and Teaching Excellence Award

2017 Smart Cities Industry Award – RAISE project, Committee for Sydney.

2014 Victorian Spatial Excellence Awards – Winner Spatial Enablement – The Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Project.

2012 The 6th Computer Assisted Teaching CONtest (CTON) 6 Gold Award, XXII Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 25th August – 1st September, “Landscape Visualisation on the Internet”, Imhof, M.P, Cox, M.T, Harvey, D.W. Heemskerk, G.E. Pettit, C.J.

2010 Planning Institute of Australia awards – Winner Rural and Regional Planning Achievement - Strategic Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change in Regional Systems – A Case Study: South West Victoria. 

2009 MSSANZ Bi-annual Award – Winner of the “Early Career Research Excellence”.

2003 Sendai Prize for outstanding paper, 8th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management.

1. Daniel, C., Wentz, E., Hurtado, P., Yang, W., & Pettit, C. (2024). Digital technology use and future expectations: a multinational survey of professional planners. Journal of the American Planning Association, 90(3), 405-420.

2. Lu, Y., Laffan, S., & Pettit, C. (2024). Coupling cellular automata and What If? models for residential expansion simulation: A case study of Southwest Sydney, Australia. Transactions in GIS.

3. Thackway, W., Ng, M., Lee, C. L., & Pettit, C. (2023). Implementing a deep-learning model using Google street view to combine social and physical indicators of gentrification. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 102, 101970.

4. Zare, P., Leao, S., Gudes, O., & Pettit, C. (2024). A simple agent-based model for planning for bicycling: Simulation of bicyclists' movements in urban environments. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 108, 102059.

5. Pettit, C. J. Shi, Y, Han, H. Ritternbruch, M. Foth, M. Lieske, S. van de Nouwelant, R, Leao, S. Christensen, B. Jamal, M. (2020) A new toolkit for land value analysis and scenario planning, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2399808320924678