City Lab Barcelona studies the impacts of urban projects, policies and interventions using formal experiments and direct observation. We engage in applied research, direct action and partnership to learn about city dynamics.  

We undertake research projects that entail impact evaluation, tactical urbanism, experimentation or direct observation. Our mission is to generate applied knowledge that can accelerate the transition to sustainable urban planning and design.   

City Lab Barcelona is a research group at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). 

Team

Jordi Honey-Rosés

Director

Jordi Honey-Rosés is the lead researcher of City Lab Barcelona at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB). He is an environmental planner by training, specialized in urban impact evaluation. He has published widely on urban experiments and impact evaluation in leading international scientific journals and his teaching has been recognized with the prestigious University Killam Teaching Award from the University of British Columbia (UBC). Prior to joining ICTA-UAB, he was Associate Professor with tenure at the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia (2013-2021). He holds the appointment of Honorary Research Associate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at UBC. He has university degrees in Political Economy (BA) and History (BA) from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master in Public Policy (MPP) from the Harvard Kennedy School. He earned his PhD in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.

Samuel Nello-Deakin

Postdoc

Samuel Nello-Deakin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where he has also worked at the Department of Geography (Research Group on Transport, Mobility
and Territory (GEMOTT)). Previously, he was a researcher in urban mobility at the Barcelona Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies (Institut Metròpoli). He holds a PhD on urban cycling from the University of Amsterdam, having previously worked at a
transport consultancy in London. He has a strong background in urban mobility, having studied Geography at the University of Cambridge and undertaken a MSc in Transport and City Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning (UCL). His research expertise combines
qualitative and quantitative approaches to urban planning and mobility issues from a spatial perspective, with a particular focus on the interactions between urban processes, active mobility, and public space.

Jerònia Cubells

Postdoc

Jerònia Cubells is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), where she works on the CO/ALIGN research project. Her research sits at the intersection of urban geography, mobility studies, and social and environmental justice, with a strong grounding in intersectional theory. She holds a PhD in Geography from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where her dissertation examined how intersecting identities influence mobility patterns and generate inequalities in well-being and environmental impacts. Jerònia has an interdisciplinary background spanning a BSc in Environmental Science (Universitat de Barcelona) and a Master’s degree in Sustainability Studies (UAB). She combines quantitative spatial analysis with qualitative and participatory research methods to address urban planning and mobility issues.

Team

Natalie Raben

Doctoral Researcher

Natalie Raben is a public space researcher whose work explores how public spaces support everyday social interactions across generations. Using Barcelona as an urban laboratory, her research focuses on observing public spaces to understand how they are used by different age groups, and how design, management, and programming can foster more age-inclusive environments. Alongside this research, she is engaging with socially oriented organisations and local practitioners involved in shaping inclusive public space. Prior to this academic work, Natalie spent several years working as a practitioner in place management roles in New York and London, where she led public-realm initiatives, delivered large-scale events, and ran urban public art projects.

Jamie Faulstich

Master's Student

Jamie Faulstich is currently completing a Master’s in Urban Resilience for Sustainability Transitions at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya. He has a background in Urban Planning with a BSc in Urban and Regional Studies, a strong interest in cycling and active transportation, and previous experience working on Vision Zero traffic safety initiatives. At City Lab he is working on the CO/ALIGN project researching how civil society organizations collaborate with other groups to achieve neighborhood transformations.

Clémentine Suraud

Project Coordinator

Clémentine Suraud Kiffer is a project coordinator working on urban mobility, sustainability, and citizen participation. She coordinates the working group on Bicycle Theft, (Espai de Coordinació contra el Robatori de Bicicletes), a cross-sectoral task force involving public institutions, mobility operators, researchers, and civil society organizations in Barcelona.

With a background in communication and sustainable mobility, and a Master's degree in ESG Sustainability, she has extensive experience designing and facilitating collaborative processes, participatory workshops, and stakeholder engagement strategies. She has also worked in the communication and outreach of sustainable mobility projects and in the development of socially sustainable mobility initiatives, such as the "Women on the Move" working group.

She is also the producer of "Moving ON", a podcast exploring sustainable mobility from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Baptiste Garro

Research collaborator

Baptiste Garro is a research collaborator working on urban mobility, data applications to help cities become more liveable, sustainable and better designed. His participation focuses on data collection, cycling analysis and collaboration with public entities.
He has a strong background in data science in the private and start-up sectors. Those include knowledge related to data infrastructure, city infrastructure, open data and construction. He is also the founder of the technology company OurCityinData, which develops data tools to support cities in managing and analysing urban data.

Csaba Debreceni

Master's Student

Csaba Debreceni is a master’s student in sustainability at UAB. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from ELTE in Hungary, producing a bachelor’s thesis on how Western and Eastern European financial markets compare in accounting for sustainability criteria. He is now pursuing how to re-engage one-time users of BiciZen using different messaging methods and looking for collaboration options with other citizen science teams.

María Lacueva

Master's Student

María Lacueva is a master's student in sustainability at the UAB. She holds a dual bachelor's degree in Economics and International Relations from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her academic interests in alternative economic models were shaped during a study period at the University of Helsinki, where she focused on degrowth, later leading her to develop her bachelor´s thesis in Economics on the estimation of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) across Spanish regions, and her bachelor's thesis in International Relations on the plastic crisis, analysing the responses of the European Union, civil society, and the plastics industry. She is currently researching cycling mobility and care-related mobility through interviews with women in Barcelona, focusing on school drop-off practices and how gendered responsibilities influence everyday mobility choices. Alongside her academic work, she has worked as an environmental educator in Lisbon with the European Solidarity Corps, developing workshops on sustainability and social issues with young people at risk of social exclusion.

Research collaborators

Isabelle Anguelovski, ICREA Research Professor, Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) 

Alex Bigazzi, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia 

Esteve Corbera, ICREA Research Professor, Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) 

Eduard Folch, Founder, Canvis en Cadena 

Leila Harris, Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), University of British Columbia 

Oriol Marquet, Researcher, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona  

Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, Director of the Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative, IS Global 

Join the team

We are open to prospective students who might be interested in joining our research group. We supervise students in the Masters and PhD program at ICTA and are also open to hiring UAB students for support on research projects.  

We are looking for students who are action oriented, self-starters, entrepreneurial, enjoy working with original data, good communicators, and eager to work to transform our cities to a more sustainable and healthier future.  

Positions are limited and competitive. We would like to keep the team moderately-sized so that we can work closely with every member of the lab. 

Successful applicants are likely to have the following qualifications: 

Prospective PhD students 

  • A master’s degree with high marks  
  • Demonstrated research interest related to City Lab Barcelona projects 
  • At least one academic paper accepted or submitted in peer-reviewed journal  
  • Excellent English language skills (for non-native English speakers minimum TOEFL or IELTS scores of 110 or 7.5, respectively)

Prospective Master students

  • A bachelor’s degree with high marks  
  • Research interest related to City Lab Barcelona projects
  • Excellent English language skills (for international students, minimum TOEFL or IELTS scores of 110 or 7.5, respectively)

If you would like to join our team, please follow these steps: 

  1. Review our recent work on this website to ensure it aligns with your research interests and goals
  2. For Masters students (especially current ICTA-UAB students), review the list of Proposed Research Projects 
  3. For prospective PhD students, review the admissions requirements and sources of funding to support your work
  4. Send an email to Jordi[dot]Honey[at]uab[dot]cat with: 
  • A subject line of “City Lab Barcelona Prospective Student: [surname]” 
  • A brief (1-2 paragraph) statement of your interest and qualifications in the body of the email
  • A CV (pdf attachment)
  • A one-paragraph (<250 word) summary of what you see in this figure and your interpretation of what might be inferred from pedestrian traffic flows at the four sites 

Thank you for your interest in City Lab Barcelona!

Alumni

  • Claire Newman, Master student(2024)
  • Gemma Simón i Mas, Doctoral Researcher (2021-2025)
  • Gerard Castilla, Bicizen intern (2024-2025)
  • Laura Heckmann, Bike Theft intern (2024-2025)
  • Luca Liebscht, BiciZen intern (2022-2024)
  • Lorena Velazquez, Communications intern (2022-2023)
  • Anna Sach, Master student(2023)
  • Julius Sax, Master student (2023)
  • Maya Hörner,  Life in Poblenou intern (2022-2023)
  • Charlotte Wienberg, Life in Poblenou intern (2022)
  • Joan Cholbi Grimalt, Protegim les escoles intern (2022)
  • Laura Vetter, Bicycle theft intern (2022)
  • Sofie Dejaegher, Master student (2021)
  • Sara Martin, Master student (2022)
  • Sultan Ahmed, Master student (2022)
  • Victoria Ortega, Sustainable mobility intern (2021 – 2022)

The City Lab Barcelona research group is supported by the Ramón y Cajal Fellowship (RyC-2019-027279-I) of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación.