PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Sybil Derrible

Also known as Sybil Jean-Marie Derrible

Sybil Derrible is an urban engineer at the University of Illinois Chicago who applies data science and artificial intelligence to city infrastructure. Born on Saint Pierre in the Saint Pierre and Miquelon archipelago, he earned a doctorate in civil engineering at the University of Toronto in 2010 and joined UIC in 2012, where he directs the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory. A 2023 Scientific Reports paper he coauthored used LSTM networks to model Chicago electricity use from traffic volume, and his books include the 2019 MIT Press textbook Urban Engineering for Sustainability and The Infrastructure Book in 2025. He received an NSF CAREER Award in 2016, the ASCE Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 2023, and ASCE fellowship in 2025. He is a professor of civil, materials, and environmental engineering at UIC, with a courtesy appointment in computer science.

Born
1983
Works
217
Citations
6,649
h-index
41

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1983–2010

    Imperial College and a Toronto PhD

    Born in 1983 on Saint Pierre, part of the Saint Pierre and Miquelon archipelago, he earns an M.Eng. in mechanical engineering from Imperial College London in 2006. A Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Toronto follows in 2010, with Christopher A. Kennedy as advisor and a thesis titled The Properties and Effects of Metro Network Designs.

  2. 2011–2012

    Research fellow in Singapore

    He spends 2011 and 2012 in Singapore as a Visiting Research Fellow with the Future of Urban Mobility group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, advised by P. Christopher Zegras.

  3. 2012–2017

    Assistant professor and CAREER award

    In 2012, he joins the University of Illinois Chicago as an assistant professor of civil, materials, and environmental engineering and director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory. In 2016, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award brings $500,000 over five years to study how location and lifestyle determine energy and resource consumption. He receives tenure and becomes an associate professor in 2017.

  4. 2019

    A textbook with MIT Press

    MIT Press publishes his textbook Urban Engineering for Sustainability in 2019. Civil engineering programs in the United States and around the world adopt it.

  5. 2023

    LSTM models of Chicago electricity

    In 2023, he coauthors a Scientific Reports paper with Ali Movahedi, Amir Bahador Parsa, Anton Rozhkov, Dongwoo Lee and Abolfazl Kouros Mohammadian. The authors use Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) networks to model electricity use in Chicago zip codes from traffic volume, drawing on over 250 models.

  6. 2023

    Huber Prize and GEO-7

    The American Society of Civil Engineers awards him its Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize in 2023; he is one of four recipients of the society's highest-level mid-career research award. He is also promoted to professor in 2023 and becomes a lead author on the energy chapter of the United Nations Environment Programme's Seventh Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7).

  7. 2025

    ASCE fellow and The Infrastructure Book

    In 2025, the ASCE Board of Direction names him a fellow, and Prometheus Books publishes his popular science book The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives. The book visits sixteen cities and examines seven kinds of infrastructure: water, wastewater, transport, electricity, gas, solid waste, and telecommunication.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and CSUN director

    He is a professor of civil, materials, and environmental engineering at UIC, a professor of computer science by courtesy, and director of the CSUN Laboratory. His research sits at the nexus of urban metabolism, infrastructure planning and design, data science and artificial intelligence, complexity science, and system resilience. In 2026, he coauthors the paper Causal modeling of energy and resource demand in npj Urban Sustainability.

Career

  1. Since 2012University of Illinois ChicagoAssistant professor of civil, materials, and environmental engineering, Director
  2. 2011–2012Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and TechnologyVisiting Research Fellow

Education

  1. 2010University of TorontoPh.D. in civil engineering
  2. 2006Imperial College LondonM.Eng. in mechanical engineering

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Illinois Chicago. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes University of Illinois Chicago. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Sybil Derrible yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Sybil Derrible - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Background | Sybil Derrible sybilderrible.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Two UIC engineering faculty receive NSF CAREER Awards | UIC today today.uic.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Derrible elevated to ASCE fellow status | ASCE asce.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Interrelationships between urban travel demand and electricity consumption: a deep learning approach | Scientific Reports nature.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Sybil Derrible awarded Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize | UIC today live.today.uic.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Sybil Derrible vows to make the world better | Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering | University of Illinois Chicago cme.uic.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Sybil Derrible sybilderrible.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. In easy-to-understand manner, author stresses infrastructure's importance | ASCE asce.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Derrible, Sybil | Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering | University of Illinois Chicago cme.uic.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.