Urban Health and Graph Deep Learning in US Cities
Imperial College London School of Public Health
Speaker
Presenting applications of graph machine learning to understand urban structure and health.
About Me
Hello! I am Winston, an Ezra Systems Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, mentored by Professor Oliver Gao. I lead interdisciplinary projects that combine systems thinking, urban analytics, and systems intelligence to advance integrated solutions for urban health systems. I hold a PhD in Urban Analytics from National University of Singapore (Urban Analytics Lab) supervised by Professor Filip Biljecki. If you are interested to collaborate or discuss ideas, please drop me a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible!
Events
Ezra Systems Fellowship
Cornell University
Postdoctoral Associate
Awarded the Ezra Systems fellowship which will support the development of interdisciplinary methods that combine systems thinking, urban analytics, and systems intelligence to advance integrated solutions for urban health systems.
Connections in Cities with Graphs
Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education
Speaker
Showing latest tools and research applications of urban graphs to deliver holistic and scalable insights for computational planning and sustainable urban development.
Research Seminar
Peking University
Speaker
Research visit and discussion on urban analytics and GeoAI with Professor Zhang Fan's group at the Institute of Remote Sensing and GIS
NUS-Tsinghua Joint Seminar
Tsinghua University
Speaker
The joint seminar at Tsinghua University brought together researchers from both institutions at the School of Architecture to discuss urban analytics and sustainable development.
Bridge for Cities Young Leaders Dialogue
United Nations Industrial Development Organization
Young Leader
50 young urban leaders from around the world who teamed up to develop creative yet pragmatic strategies in response to pressing urban demands.
Mayor's Forum
World Cities Summit (Vienna)
Young Leader
The annual Mayors Forum of the World Cities Summit was hosted in beautiful Vienna and provided a platform for city leaders to share their cities best practices. It was an honor to meet and speak with Minister for National Development, Mr Chee Hong Tat.
Joint Seminar Day
Cambridge University
Representative
Sustainable Design Group hosted researchers from the NUS Urban Analytics Lab. Both research groups presented joint seminars, and shared exciting research on decarbonisation of built environment, planetary health, and urban analytics.
CUPUM 2025
Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
Speaker
Presented on urban graph for multi-scalar urban analytics that connect cities, data, and city. It was a great honor to meet Professor Yeh at London.
Tea Reception with SM Lee
Singapore Global Network
Global Member
The Singapore Embassy and Singapore Global Network hosted a memorable tea reception providing a meaningful opportunity to connect, reflect, and strengthen bonds among Singaporeans abroad.
MIT Visiting Researcher (Boston, USA)
Senseable City Lab (On-site, 15 August 2024 to 15 February 2025)
Visiting Scholar
Working on visual A.I. algorithms for cityscale urban sensing.
Young Leaders Programme
World Cities Summit (Singapore)
Young Leader
The World Cities Summit Young Leaders programme provides a professional networking and thought leadership platform on global urban issues.
NUS Overseas College (Nagoya, Japan)
Map IV, Nagoya University (On-site, 15 January to 30 June 2024)
Machine Learning Engineer Intern
Developing open source, deep learning-based solutions for end-to-end generation of high-definition maps from city-scale point cloud and 360° imagery.
Science-Based Approach to Future Scenario Planning
USS R&D Congress 2023, Singapore Ministry for National Development (9:00 - 11:00 AM SGT, 5
October 2023)
Speaker
Examining the role of science-based methods to plan for the future of cities.
Modelling Urban Networks in Cities
127th OGC Member Meeting - Digital Twin Special Session: (13:30 - 18:00 PM SGT, 26 September
2023)
Session Organizer
We present a network-based analytical perspective to understand and model cities.
Free and Open Source Digital Planning Tools
PlanTech Briefing, Planning Institute of Australia (13:00 - 14:00 PM AEST, 20 July 2023)
Speaker
A crash course on freely available tools that can add value to the urban planning process.
Street view imagery: Have we answered all the questions with it? What’s left to do?
The 4th Spatial Data Science Symposium (8:45 - 9:45 AM EDT, 6 September 2023)
Session Organizer
We present and discuss the latest advancements in street view imagery research with Prof Yuhao Kang (USC), Prof Mohamed R. Ibrahim (UCL), and Prof Pengyuan Liu (NUIST).
Recent Work
Revealing building operating carbon dynamics for multiple cities
Published in Nature Sustainability
Yap, W., Wu, A.N., Miller, C., & Biljecki, F (2025).
Democratising built environment emissions at building resolution across multiple cities with open science and graph deep learning.
The City Rebooted: Networks, Connectivity and Place Identities in Singapore
Published by World Scientific
Edited by Chan Heng Chee and Harvey Neo
This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach to signpost future pathways of cities, drawing on the experiences of the city-state of Singapore.
Housing and the City
Published by Council on Urban Initiatives
Chan, H.C., & Yap, W (2024).
Five decades of delivering affordable and adequate public housing in Singapore.
Global Feature-Rich Network Dataset
Published in Scientific Data
Yap, W., & Biljecki, F (2023).
High resolution network dataset and interactive dashboard for 50 global cities.
Urbanity: Automated Modelling and Analysis of Multidimensional Networks in Cities
Published in npj Urban Sustainability
Yap, W., Stouffs, R., & Biljecki, F (2023).
We develop an open python package to automate computation of contextual and semantic spatial attributes of urban networks at any geographic location and scale.
Incorporating networks in semantic understanding of streetscapes for active mobility planning.
Published in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Yap, W., Chang, J.H., & Biljecki, F (2022).
We investigate visual complexity and urban greenery along urban networks in Singapore and Tokyo. Access: here.
Free and Open Urbanism: Software for Urban Planning Practice
Published in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
Yap, W., Janssen, P., & Biljecki, F (2022).
A state of the art review of open source analytical software to support urban planners. We identified 124 software and analyse trends in the landscape. Our work is open source and available here.
(Book Chapter) Tokyo - Pushing Frontiers, Planning for Society 5.0
Published by IMD and SUTD
Yap, W., & Norakmal, H (2021).
This is the second volume of smart city case studies edited by Arturo Bris, Christos Cabolis, Bruno Lanvin, and Chan Heng Chee. What drives cities to be smart? How have cities employed technology to cope with the global pandemic?
(Book) Age-Friendly Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guidelines - A Singapore Case Study
Published by World Scientific
Yuen, B., Bhuyan, M. R., Song, S., Moogoor, A., Yap, W., Močnik, Š., & Chua, R. (2022).
This work focuses on evidence-based research and examples of existing good practices on health-enabling, age-friendly neighbourhood provision. Recommendations prioritises the need to engage with older people when creating neighbourhoods that contribute to healthy ageing in place.
Neighbourhood built Environment, physical activity, and physical health among older adults in Singapore: A simultaneous equations approach
Published in Journal of Transport & Health
Song, S., Yap, W., Hou, Y., & Yuen, B (2020).
An increasing body of evidence suggests that regular physical activity can have important beneficial effects on individuals’ health into later years. This research investigated the inter-relationships between neighbourhood built environment and health.
The associations between older adults’ daily travel pattern and objective and perceived built environment: A study of three neighbourhoods in Singapore.
Published in Transport Policy
Hou, Y., Yap, W., Chua, R., Song, S., & Yuen, B (2020).
The increasing preference for ageing-in-place highlights the pivotal role of the neighbourhood environment in meeting the mobility needs of older adults.
Get In Touch
Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have an interesting idea for collaboration, have some research opportunity to share, or would like to discuss some ideas. I have a broad interest in all things urban, not limited to, urban ethnography, collaborative planning, urban economics, real estate markets, metaverse and smart cities. I am also keen to explore context-based urban research, particularly for communities and cities in Southeast Asia. Looking forward to connecting and hearing from you!