Building on the momentum achieved by recent tier-1 coverage of New York University’s Center for Urban Progress and Science,  the Center, and its founding director, the renowned physicist and former Under Secretary of Energy at the United States Department of Energy, Dr. Steven E. Koonin, were the subjects of a front page story  in Saturday’s New York Times Business Day Section.  The piece, authored by  Steve Lohr, the paper’s leading technology reporter- and editor of the the Times’“Bits” technology blog, delves deeply, and with great insight, into the CUSP’s mission.

The piece provides Dr. Koonin a forum to alleviate any potential privacy concerns, and to lay out the process through which the Center is successfully beginning to forge partnerships with government labs to tap into those labs’ additional expertise.

Among the key highlights of the piece include:

• The most detailed and interesting public reporting to date on the types of projects CUSP will take on, beginning with the first challenge it will engage: excessive noise. Mr. Lohr documents how Dr. Koonin has assembled a team of 10 members from a variety of backgrounds to apply urban informatics to address the issue.
• Reporting on projects in the near-term hopper such as capturing thermal images of buildings across much of the city, as a starting point for research on energy use.
• Explaining to readers how CUSP will benefit by focusing all of its attention on one city – New York – allowing NYC to serve as a “living laboratory” and also by the agreements CUSP has forged with the City to gain unprecedented access to City Data

The title of Mr. Lohr’s piece is particularly timely given that the sixth edition of the wildly popular and critically acclaimed city building/urban planning simulation game SimCity is set to be officially released on March 5.            

Read the complete Times piece

Read the recent exclusive “first look” at CUSP feature in  Crain’s New York Business.

About CUSP

CUSP is an applied science research institute created by New York University and NYU-Poly with a consortium of world-class universities and leading international tech companies. At the heart of its academic program, CUSP will investigate and develop solutions to the challenges that face cities around the world. The Center will be the first program to assemble a global consortium to focus on this area of research and development at this scale, making it the world’s leading authority in the emerging field of “urban informatics.”  For more news and information on CUSP, click here.