Dr Binyu Lei PhD

Dubai Campus
Assistant Professor in Urban Planning and Data Analytics

Contact details

Email: b.lei@bham.ac.uk

Dr Lei is an urban data researcher specialising in urban informatics and computational spatial modelling. Her work integrates AI and geospatial analytics to advance urban studies, contributing to the development of liveable and sustainable urban environments.

Biography

Dr Binyu Lei is an Assistant Professor in Urban Planning and Data Analytics at the University of Birmingham. She completed her PhD in Urban Analytics at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where she was a member of the Urban Analytics Lab (UAL).

Her research centres on urban informatics and computational spatial modelling, with particular expertise in AI-driven geospatial analytics, 3D city modelling, and data-driven urban analysis. Her work contributes to methodological advances in 3D GIS and urban analytics, bridging technical innovation with planning applications.

Dr Lei leads MSc Urban Analytics and AI for Planners on Dubai campus, teaching spatial analysis, urban data science, and AI applications in urban planning. Her teaching integrates programming, GIS, and machine learning into planning education, emphasising applied skills and data-driven decision-making.

Dr Lei contributes to academic service through peer review for leading international journals, including Cities, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, etc. She is an active member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (3DIM Working Group) and the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. She also contributes to international research communities through conference engagement and workshop organisation, including serving as an organiser for the ICLR 2025 Workshop on Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning.

Teaching

41538: Big Data in Urban Analytics: Theory and Practice (Dubai)

41542: Research Skills for Urban Scientists: Research with AI, Data Handling, Statistical Modelling (Dubai)

41546, 41547, 41754: Urban Lab (Dubai)
Dissertation for MSc Urban Analytics and AI

Postgraduate supervision

Urban informatics, Human-centric urban analysis, GeoAI, Urban health, Urban morphology, Computational social science

Research

Dr Lei’s research focuses on urban informatics, integrating artificial intelligence and geospatial analytics to better understand urban form, liveability, and human–environment interactions. Her work combines geospatial engineering and graph-based modelling to advance methodological innovation in urban analytics. During her doctoral research at the National University of Singapore, she examined how digital twin technologies can incorporate human perception, supporting more liveable and sustainable urban development.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Liu, P, Wang, Y, De Sabbata, S, Lei, B, Biljecki, F, Tang, J & Stouffs, R 2026, 'Living upon networks: A heterogeneous graph neural embedding integrating waterway and street systems for urban form understanding', Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 453-469. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083251358527

Lei, B, Liu, P, Fujiwara, K, Frei, M, Miller, C, Chua, YX & Biljecki, F 2026, 'Multidimensional analysis of human outdoor comfort: Integrating just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) in urban digital twins', Cities, vol. 168, 106443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106443

Fujiwara, K, Tsurumi, R, Kiyono, T, Fan, Z, Liang, X, Lei, B, Yap, W, Ito, K & Biljecki, F 2026, 'VoxCity: A seamless framework for open geospatial data integration, grid-based semantic 3D city model generation, and urban environment simulation', Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, vol. 123, 102366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2025.102366

Cheng, S, Lei, B, Fujiwara, K, Miller, C, Biljecki, F & van Ameijde, J 2026, 'Walking through green and grey: Exploring sequential exposure and multisensory environmental effects on psychological restoration', Building and Environment, vol. 287, no. Part A, 113748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113748

Lei, B, Liu, P, Liang, X, Yan, Y & Biljecki, F 2025, 'Developing the urban comfort index: Advancing liveability analytics with a multidimensional approach and explainable artificial intelligence', Sustainable Cities and Society, vol. 120, 106121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.106121

Miller, C, Chua, YX, Quintana, M, Lei, B, Biljecki, F & Frei, M 2025, 'Make yourself comfortable: Nudging urban heat and noise mitigation with smartwatch-based Just-in-time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI)', Building and Environment, vol. 284, 113388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113388

Liu, P, Lei, B, Huang, W, Biljecki, F, Wang, Y, Li, S & Stouffs, R 2025, 'Sensing climate justice: A multi-hyper graph approach for classifying urban heat and flood vulnerability through street view imagery', Sustainable Cities and Society, vol. 118, 106016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.106016

Abdelrahman, M, Macatulad, E, Lei, B, Quintana, M, Miller, C & Biljecki, F 2025, 'What is a Digital Twin anyway? Deriving the definition for the built environment from over 15,000 scientific publications', Building and Environment, vol. 274, 112748. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.112748

Lei, B, Liu, P, Milojevic-Dupont, N & Biljecki, F 2024, 'Predicting building characteristics at urban scale using graph neural networks and street-level context', Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, vol. 111, 102129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2024.102129

Lei, B, Stouffs, R & Biljecki, F 2023, 'Assessing and benchmarking 3D city models', International Journal of Geographical Information Science, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 788-809. https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2022.2140808

Chapter

Liu, P, Hou, Y, Lei, B, Liang, X & Biljecki, F 2025, GeoAI and Urban Geography. in X Huang, S Wang, J Wilson & P Kedron (eds), GeoAI and Human Geography: The Dawn of a New Spatial Intelligence Era. 1 edn, Springer Geography, Springer, pp. 251-266. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-87421-5_18

Conference article

Lei, B, Liang, X & Biljecki, F 2024, 'Integrating human perception in 3D city models and urban digital twins', ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, vol. 10, no. 4/W5-2024, pp. 211-218. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-X-4-W5-2024-211-2024

Conference contribution

Lei, B, Su, Y & Biljecki, F 2024, Humans As Sensors in Urban Digital Twins. in TH Kolbe, A Donaubauer & C Beil (eds), Recent Advances in 3D Geoinformation Science: Proceedings of the 18th 3D GeoInfo Conference. 1 edn, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, pp. 693-706, International 3D GeoInfo Conference, 3DGeoInfo 2023, Munich, Germany, 12/09/23. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43699-4_42

Review article

Wang, S, Huang, X, Liu, P, Zhang, M, Biljecki, F, Hu, T, Fu, X, Liu, L, Liu, X, Wang, R, Huang, Y, Yan, J, Jiang, J, Chukwu, M, Reza Naghedi, S, Hemmati, M, Shao, Y, Jia, N, Xiao, Z, Tian, T, Hu, Y, Yu, L, Yap, W, Macatulad, E, Chen, Z, Cui, Y, Ito, K, Ye, M, Fan, Z, Lei, B & Bao, S 2024, 'Mapping the landscape and roadmap of geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) in quantitative human geography: An extensive systematic review', International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, vol. 128, 103734. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2024.103734

Lei, B, Janssen, P, Stoter, J & Biljecki, F 2023, 'Challenges of urban digital twins: A systematic review and a Delphi expert survey', Automation in Construction, vol. 147, 104716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2022.104716

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