Wonyoung So

Wonyoung So is an assistant professor of urban technology and director of the Reparative Technology Lab. He works at the intersection of urban planning, critical data studies, and data visualization to study how access to resources and opportunities — over space and place — is mediated by data and technology, with a focus on housing and translating scholarly research into public impact that promotes democratic participation by marginalized residents.

He has been published in leading journals and proceedings across urban planning and computer science fields: Housing Policy Debate; Journal of Urban Affairs; Housing Studies; Geoforum: Big Data & Society; and the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. And his creative work has been recognized by the Information is Beautiful Awards, MIT Museum, IEEE, Fast Co. Design, The Atlantic, CNN, The Guardian, Seoul Museum of Art, Wired, and more.

So holds a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning and a master’s in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.F.A. in visual communication design from Kookmin University in South Korea. At MIT, he was a research fellow at the Senseable City Lab and a Presidential Fellow, and worked as a research assistant and technical lead at the Data + Feminism Lab. In South Korea, he co-curated the Seoul Libré Maps public mapping program created for the inaugural Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in 2017 and co-founded Tumblbug, the nation’s largest crowdfunding platform for creative projects.