Zara is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Spatial Data Science in the Department of Geography. Her research specialises in the development and application of computational methods for urban analytics and predictive modelling, drawing on large-scale geospatial, textual, and visual data. Her work seeks to advance the understanding of complex urban processes and to inform planning and policy development, with an empirical focus on the United Kingdom and Indonesia. She is an advocate for the open data and open science movement, promoting transparency, collaboration, and accessibility in research.
Zara’s research is methodologically grounded in the use of artificial intelligence and urban data science. She has employed a range of approaches, including machine/deep learning, natural language processing, geographically weighted regression, spatial interaction and general spatio-temporal models, to address critical urban challenges. Her thematic interests include platform urbanism and climate sustainability. Her previous doctoral research examined the effects of short-term rental platforms (e.g. Airbnb) on housing markets, and her subsequent work has analysed social media data to study public perception and urban dynamics. She has various experiences in managing collaborative international research projects and consortia. She is the PI of the British Academy–funded project Empowering Resilience in a Sinking City (2024–2026). The project has developed an open data platform, a decision support tool, and predictive flood models and simulations in Jakarta, Indonesia.
