My Journey
I started my career as a construction project manager and then as an urban planning consultant from 1996 to 2007. My academic journey started in 2008, when I joined the University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) as a sessional lecturer in Mapping Technologies while doing my PhD. I continued as a senior lecturer in UTM, teaching and conducting research on Planning Support Systems, and Geospatial Modeling and Simulation. In 2014, I secured a Post Doctoral position in Urban Analytics at the Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration (CSDILA) at The University of Melbourne, Australia. In that capacity, I managed a multidisciplinary group of researchers and software developers to develop an ontological framework for urban data harmonization and urban quality of life analysis, monitoring, and benchmarking. Furthermore, I received a second postdoctoral opportunity in 2019 at the University of Melbourne in partnership with two faculties: 1) Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning and 2) Faculty of Engineering and IT. This second postdoctoral was about applying 3D geospatial data and analytics in landscape design. As the output, I developed a methodology and workflow for scenario building on real-time water-sensitive urban design, built on a web-based Digital Twin.

I continued as a Senior Research Fellow in CSDILA leading the Planning Support Systems and Urban Analytics Research Unit and Managing Digital Twin team, before joining SMST at UCF as an Assistant Professor, in Digital Twin Strategic Initiative, in August 2023. My research, practice, and teaching interests are developing Urban Digital Twins, Multi-dimensional (3D/4D) Planning Support Systems, and Analytical tools that enable planners and decision-makers for evidence-based and data-driven smart and sustainable city development.

Over the last 10 years, I secured more than AU$20 Million in research grants from state, national, and international governments and agencies, including The World Bank. Also, I supervised and co-supervised more than 28 PhD and Master students and contributed to more than 70 publications as the lead and co-author.

In addition, I contribute to the professional community as the:

1. Co-chair of the Academic and Research Working Group in the Digital Twin Consortium,
2. National Advisory Committee of PlanTech in the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA),
3. Member of The Spatial Digital Twin Standards working group in the Geospatial Council of Australia (GCA).
4. Academic advisor of Digital Twin Task Force in Smart Cities Council; and
5. Member of the Urban Digital Twin working group at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

I am a father of twins (a good match for work and life!), and apart from work, I enjoy reading historical books and watching movies and documentaries in the same line, particularly modern history. Also, I am a big fan and active in recreational exercises, cross-fit challenges, and recreational running and hiking. I sometimes enjoy participating in those challenges with my lovely wife and twins.

Figure 1: Half-marathon, Run Melbourne 2019

Figure 2: Running Club at The University of Melbourne

My goals for the Digital Twin Initiative:
I am interested in contributing my view of a composable and modular system architecture of Digital Twins to integrate 2D, 3D, and 4D (time) data for built and natural environments and socio-economic systems analytics, visualization, and predictive modeling and simulations. I am also passionate about the application of emerging technologies, including IoT, AI, and Deep Learning in Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) and Urban Quality of Life (UQL).

To understand the opportunities and challenges of such a system architecture and adopting the technologies in urban science, I started my Urban Digital Twin Lab in SMST, and I am interested in collaborative research and development in 3D urban analytics, GeoDesign for climate adaptation, and human-environment interaction modeling and simulation.