Sybil Derrible is Professor of Urban Engineering and Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). He is a world-renowned scholar on infrastructure and Lead Author of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Seventh Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) report.

Derrible is the recipient of a US National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and a Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He was also an invited participant to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Grainger Foundations Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in 2023. Since 2019, he has been recognized in the top 2% researchers in his field for career and single-year impact by Elsevier.

Derrible has published over one hundred publications. He is the author of the textbook "Urban Engineering for Sustainability" (MIT Press, 2019) and the popular science book "The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives" (Prometheus Books 2025).

Research interests

Urban Engineering
Urban Metabolism
Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure
Infrastructure Planning and Design
Data Science / Artificial Intelligence
Complexity Science
Environmental Justice
Future Studies