Robert Soden

Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, and School of the Environment
Bahen Centre for Information Technology, 40 St George St, Room BA 3254 Toronto, ON M5S 2E4
416-946-8514
soden@cs.toronto.edu

Campus

  • Downtown Toronto (St. George)

Cross-Appointments

Department of Computer Science

Fields of Study

  • Communities & Cities
  • Social Sustainability
  • Sustainable Design & Technology

Areas of Interest

  • Crisis Informatics
  • Human-computer interaction (HCI)
  • Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW)
  • Infrastructure studies
  • Critical design
  • Participatory sensing
  • Civic technology
  • Environmental justice

Biography

Prior to starting his PhD, Soden was a professional software developer and consultant to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), where he launched the Open Data for Resilience Initiative, a worldwide effort to harness open data, open source software and civic technology to improve disaster and climate risk management. He is also a co-founder and member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, a global organization dedicated to creating a free and open map of the world for humanitarian and development purposes.

While a PhD student, Robert was also a visiting student researcher with University of California, Berkeley's Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society, and a visiting researcher and lecturer with the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative.

Education

PhD, University of Colorado Boulder
MA, American University
BA, University of Illinois, Chicago

Awards