Sybil Derrible, PhD
Professor
Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering
Contact
Building & Room:
2071 ERF
Address:
842 West Taylor Street, MC 246, Chicago, IL 60607
Office Phone:
Email:
Related Sites:
About
Sybil Derrible is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Computer Science (by courtesy), a Research Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, and the Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago.
His research is at the nexus of urban metabolism, infrastructure planning and design, data science, complexity science, environmental justice, and futures studies to redefine how infrastructure is planned, designed, built, operated, and maintained championing principles of livability, sustainability, and resilience.
The CSUN laboratory focuses on at least seven infrastructure systems: water, wastewater, transportation, electricity, solid waste, gas, and telecommunication.
Sybil Derrible received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (Canada), a D.E.S.O. from the Ecole Centrale of Lyon (France), and an M.Eng. from Imperial College London (United Kingdom). He is originally from the small France-owned archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, off the East coast of the U.S. and Canada with a population of about 6,000 people. Growing up on a small island where all infrastructure is visible motivated him to study infrastructure as integrated, interrelated, and interdependent systems.
Selected Publications
Selected Books
- Derrible, S., 2025, The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives, Prometheus Books, in editing, to be published in spring 2025
- Derrible, S., 2019, Urban Engineering for Sustainability, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 656 pages.
Selected Publications
- Sutradhar, U., Spearing, L., & Derrible, S., 2024 “Depopulation and associated challenges for US cities by 2100”, Nature Cities, 1(1):51-61
- Movahedi, A., Bahador Parsa, A., Rozhkov, A., Lee, D., Mohammadian, A., & Derrible, S., 2023 “Interrelationships between urban travel demand and electricity consumption: a deep learning approach”, Scientific Reports, 13(1): 6223
- Salon, D., Conway, M.W., Capasso da Silva, D., Chauhan, R.S., Derrible, S., Mohammadian, A., Khoeini, S., Parker, N., Mirtich, L., Shamshiripour, A., Rahimi, E., & Pendyala, R., 2021 “The potential stickiness of pandemic-induced behavior changes in the United States”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 118(27): e2106499118
- Derrible, S., 2017 “Urban Infrastructure is not a Tree: Integrating and Decentralizing Urban Infrastructure Systems”, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 44 (3):553-569
- Derrible, S. & Kennedy, C., 2010 “The Complexity and Robustness of Metro Networks“, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 389(17):3678-3691
Publication Aggregators
Service to Community
Selected Service as Journal Editor
- Scientific Reports (Nature)
- ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems (American Society of Civil Engineers)
- Cleaner Production Letters (Elsevier)
Selected Service for Societies and Organizations
- Lead Author on the Seventh Edition of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)'s Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-7) (2023 – present)
- Chair of AMR10 Critical Transportation Infrastructure Protection Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) (2023 – present)
- Co-founder of Actionable Science for Urban Sustainability (AScUS) and past member of the unconference organizing committee (2020 and 2021)
- Past Chair of the Sustainable Urban Systems (SUS) Section of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) (2017 – 2020)
- Member of AP065 Rail Transit Systems Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) (2020 – 2022)
Notable Honors
Since 2019, Recognized in the top 2% researcher in my field for career and single-year impact, Elsevier
2018 and 2024, Gordon Research Conference (Invited Speaker), International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE)
2023, Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
2023, Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (Nominated Participant), National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
2020, PROSE Award (Finalist in Textbooks for Urban Engineering for Sustainability), Association of American Publishers (AAP)
2017, College of Engineering Research Award, University of Illinois Chicago
2016, CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (NSF)
2014, 2016, 2021, College of Engineering Advising Award, University of Illinois Chicago
2014, 2017, 2019, College of Engineering Teaching Award, University of Illinois Chicago
2011, Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-CRSNG)
Education
Post-Doctorate, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) (2012)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
United States
Ph.D., Civil Engineering (2010)
University of Toronto
Canada
D.E.S.O., Industrial Engineering (2006)
Ecole Centrale of Lyon
France
M.Eng., Mechanical Engineering (2006)
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
Professional Memberships
- American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
- International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE)
- Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies
Artistic and Professional Performances and Exhibits
Sybil Derrible enjoys photography and writing fiction. His photos are available on his Gallery page, and some of his short stories are available on his Writings page and on Medium.