Dr. Ning Ai’s research and teaching interests focus on urban environmental planning and its integration with land use, industrial ecology, and sustainable economic development. She has worked for the World Bank, the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., and the Georgia State Department of Natural Resources. Her previous work experiences include the application of GIS in environmental protection, urban sustainability indicators, and the socioeconomic impact analysis of natural disasters. Most recently, Dr. Ai has engaged in the socioeconomic and spatial analysis of material and waste management, with a focus on electronic waste, post-consumer carpet, and municipal solid waste. Her work in collaboration with Dr. Isabel Cruz for Great Cities Institute will extend this research.
In “Feasibility & Efficiency Analysis of Neighborhood-Based Sustainable Food Waste Management” Professors Ai and Cruz will compare data from previous food waste studies conducted at UIC and across the Chicago metropolitan region, integrating state-of-art knowledge from the distinct fields of urban planning and computer science. Their comparison will include a consideration of differences in the methodologies of these studies in order to further refine models and parameters for future studies. In addition, they will expand Dr. Cruz’s framework for spatial and temporal data integration, GIVA, in order to address the unique challenges of this project.
