Shubhayan Ukil

Curriculum Vitae

PhD Student

Programs

Urban and Regional Planning

Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning

Office: 2208K - Desk 4

Shubhayan’s work looks at how the built environment and socioeconomic factors influence people’s travel and destination choices. He looks at travel decision-making as a complex phenomenon that needs to be analyzed by considering the impact of different mechanisms in the surrounding system. His current dissertation investigates how shared and micro-mobility services are influencing the destination choices of people in the case of Chicago in the United States and Bengaluru in India. The research builds on understanding the impact of these emerging travel modes beyond the mobility perspective, to guide policies focused on destinations, which is the ultimate purpose of travel. It also intends to bring forth the similarities and differences in the impact of these services between cities of developed vs. developing nations.

He primarily takes a quantitative approach to raw causal inferences using statistical and Data Science methods to analyze travel choices. He has recently completed a Graduate Data Science Certificate program from the Michigan Institute for Data Science. He is also currently working on a pedestrian and bike count modeling project using crowdsourced data for the Michigan Department of Transportation to understand the utility of emerging data modes for forecasting.

Before beginning his doctorate education, he worked for three years in India and the United States, including consulting, academic organizations, and Think Tank. Most recently, he worked with the World Resources Institute, in India as a Transportation Analyst on areas of shared mobility, transportation accessibility, and integrated transportation system. The diverse experience has shaped his research interests to conduct action-oriented research to guide policymaking. He holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and an undergraduate degree in Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada, India.