UMF Faculty
Dr. Marco te Brömmelstroet
Professor in Urban Mobility Futures at the University of Amsterdam
He holds master degrees in Infrastructure Planning and Geographical Information Management, His teaching in Planning Bachelor and Master's programs centers around the (problematic) integration of land use and mobility and ways to improve this. His research is strongly intertwined with planning practice. He has done several studies on how to improve the use of knowledge in urban strategy making processes.
[Profile page of University of Amsterdam | Linkedin Profile]
Ran Zhang
PhD Candidate
She is interested in the urban cycling environment, cyclists’ behaviors, emotions, and big data analysis. Her research will focus on cycling-friendly environment improvement. She is attempting to propose cycling optimization strategies considering the public experience, citizen engagement, and policy makers’ intentions. Before joining the UMF faculty, she obtained her master's degree in Landscape Architecture in China. She has contributed to natural urban health and well-being in blue spaces through social media data analysis.
Jonne Silonsaari
Postdoc
His study focuses on childhood mobilities and cycling promotion initiatives using action research methodology. He examines how institutions shape childhood mobilities and how children, parents and cycling advocates can imagine and experiment new ways of promoting children’s autonomous mobility. Participatory and transformative methodology allows tangible examination of change processes where everyday mobility and childhood are mutually constituted. His background is in sport sociology, driving the interest to urban cycling as a corporeal practice.
Vikas Bagde
PhD Candidate
Vikas is an engineer, designer and storyteller. His work has been grounded in the communities in India, using media and emergent technology platforms for education, problem conceptualization, problem-solving and community participation. In addition to experiential learnings with communities, he has a Masters in Ecology, Environment and Sustainable Development from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He has worked with the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi on climate vulnerability, risk assessment and adaptation planning. He is interested in theorizing bottom-up innovation for eco-centric development. For his PhD research, he will study the evolution and adoption of electric rickshaws in India along with its implication on sustainability as well as access to urban mobility, and the change it has brought in the public transport system.
Eva Kwakman
PhD candidate
Eva is interested in public space and social justice (who/what public space is for) and in societal discourse on these topics. Her research at Urban Mobility Futures will focus on the framing of traffic crashes in Dutch media and the impact of this framing on those that were directly involved in crashes and their next of kin. Moreover, she will further develop the online database thecrashes.org together with Marco te Brömmelstroet by creating a digital filter for news articles on traffic crashes that will visualize the state of the discourse over time. Another objective is to use all these findings to make a direct positive impact on the media discourse itself. Eva’s background is a master’s degree in sociology (specifically ‘social problems and social policy’) at the University of Amsterdam.
