Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning Zhenhua Chen has been awarded the College of Engineering Lumley Research Award as part of the Spring 2023 College of Engineering  Faculty Awards Ceremony.

Chen joined the Knowlton School faculty as an Assistant Professor in the City and Regional Planning Section in 2016. Chen’s field is regional science, and his research interests include infrastructure planning and policy, resilience and recovery planning and the use and applications of big data in regional science analysis. Much of his research focuses on integrating these subfields through new approaches to regional impact assessment applied to primary transportation infrastructure systems. His work has significant impact on the effectiveness of planning investments and disaster preparation and recovery and has gained further currency with the increased frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events and systems disruptions.

Chen’s scholarly record is remarkable for a faculty member of his rank. In the last five years he has published 36 journal articles, three books, 11 book chapters, and given 34 academic presentations. According to Google Scholar, since 2018 his 2  work received has 1959 citations and he has an H-Index of 25 and an overall citation count of 2129.  His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Ford Motor Company, the Ohio DOT, and Ohio Department of Public Safety, and more. 

In Addition, Chen has co-authored two books since joining the Knowlton faculty (and one book before joining the faculty while he was a postdoctoral fellow): High-Speed Rail and China’s New Economic Geography: Impact Assessment from the Regional Science Perspective (Edward Elgar 2019) and Economic Consequence Analysis of Disasters The ECAT Software Tool (Springer 2017). He has also published two co-edited books, Big Data for Regional Science (Routledge 2017) and Development Studies in Regional Science: Essays in Honor of Kingsley E. Haynes (Springer 2020).

Chen also has a significant track record as a journal reviewer. Over the past five years, he has served in this capacity for 20 journals: Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of Planning Literature, Journal of Regional Science, Papers in Regional Science, International Journal of Urban Sciences, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, Annals of Regional Science, Growth and Change, Journal of Transport Geography, Journal of Rural Studies, Urban Studies, International Regional Science Review, Reviews of Regional Studies, Economic Development Quarterly, Transportation Research Part A, Transportation Research Part D, Transport Reviews, Transportation, Transportation Letters, and Landscape and Urban Planning.

In 2022, Chen was awarded the Geoffrey D. Hewings Award from the Regional Science Association.