Who we are

The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is an initiative within University College London to develop emerging computer technologies in several disciplines which deal with geography, space, location, and the built environment. CASA is a unit in the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment (The Bartlett). The Director is Dr Andrew Hudson-Smith and the Chair of the Management Board is Professor Michael Batty.

CASA's focus is to be at the forefront of what is one of the grand challenges of 21st Century science: to build a science of cities from a multidisciplinary base, drawing on cutting edge methods, and ideas in modeling, complexity, visualisation and computation. Our current mix of architects, geographers, mathematicians, physicists, archeologists and computer scientists make CASA a unique department within UCL.

Our vision is to be central to this new science, the science of smart cities, and relate it to city planning, policy and architecture in its widest sense. The focus is on advancing the state of the art through research complemented by graduate study, undergraduate teaching, consultancy and distance learning.

CASA is physically located at 90 Tottenham Court Road where all of our research is carried out. Our research groups are seated in close proximity to each other in an open plan office, where we also accommodate our MPhil/PhD and MRes students.

CASA currently has 19 Research Associates undertaking research projects dealing with spatial problems and policies which link urban design to GIS to online multi-user environments. These posts are funded from various sources, such as Research Councils, Government agencies and CASA's consultancy activity. When vacancies do arise they are always advertised on our homepage. We also have 10 MPhil/PhD students studying at CASA. Most of these students are self-funded because scholarships are very competitive and difficult to obtain. Each student is supervised by members of the academic staff of CASA and/or a cognate department. In addition to this, we have a yearly intake of MRes Advanced Spatial Analysis and Visualisation students.

As well as the staff and students, CASA usually attracts two or three distinguished international Academic Visitors per year; their visits can range from 2 - 12 months.

If you are interested in joining CASA as a student or Academic Visitor, please see the Programmes section of our website.

The UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis is located at 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4TJ.

Postal Address:
UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

Telephone:
020 3108 3877

Fax:
020 3108 3258

For all enquiries, please email casa@ucl.ac.uk