Human-Centered Cities Lab
The Human-Centered Cities Lab is a research group in the College of Engineering at Villanova University focused on rethinking how people experience, interact with, and shape the cities of the future.
Who We Are
We are an interdisciplinary collaborative research group and welcome students from all backgrounds, within and beyond engineering, who share an interest in human-centered cities and the societal impacts of emerging urban technologies. Our Current lab members have background in Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Architecture, and Civil Engineering.
What we do
Our work spans across human interaction with autonomous and connected vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, smart buildings, and data-driven urban environments.
NEWS
- New Conference Paper Accepted! our paper “Can Vision-Language Models Understand Construction Workers? An Exploratory Study” is now accepted to be published in the IEEE Access Journal. (January 2026)
- New Conference Paper Accepted! our paper “Steering through Time: Blending Longitudinal Data with Simulation to Rethink Human-Autonomous Vehicle Interaction” is now accepted to the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium 2026. (January 2026)
- New Paper Published! our paper “Understanding passenger experience in public transportation built environment through eye tracking” is now published in the journal of npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport! (January 2026)
- New Paper Published! our paper “Urban forms across continents: A data-driven comparison of Lausanne and Philadelphia” is now published in the Journal of Transportation Research Interdiscplinary Perspectives! (January 2026)
- New Paper Published! Super excited about our new paper “Impact of windows, natural materials, and diverse representations in built environments on psychological and physiological well-being: A between-subjects experiment in immersive virtual environments“, published in Building and Environment, Read the full paper here. (May 2025)
- Exciting Membership! Arash has accepted an appointment as one of the members of the Standing Committee on Human Factors of Vehicles (ACH30) (March 2025)
- New Paper Published! Excited about our new study, Public transit of the future: Enhancing well-being through human-centered public transportation spaces. Read the full paper here. (February 2025)
- New Paper Published! Excited about our new study, Psycho-behavioral Responses to Urban Scenes: An Exploration through Eye-tracking published in Cities. Read the full paper here. (November 2024)
- New Lab Member! Blue has joined the Human-Centered Cities Lab. Blue is interested in computer vision, and collaborating with humans. Most of Blue’s free time goes to dancing and training with computer vision models. Welcome Blue! (October 2024)
- Interview! Dr. Tavakoli was interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer regarding the recent fatal cyclist crash in Philadelphia. Read more! (July 2024)
Contact Information:
Email: Arash.tavakoli@villanova.edu
Address: 800 E Lancaster Ave – Drosdick 352 Villanova, PA 19085