Assistant Director, GIS Operations & Research
Center for Sustainable Communities
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Community & Regional Planning

Mr. Mahbubur Meenar has spent the last decade developing applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other technologies to urban and regional analysis.

His current interests involve the creation of 3-D GIS simulations in various planning applications, including natural disaster management, smart growth, and sustainable development. He is also engaged in interactive public information and community participation through World Wide Web and digital media applications.

He joined the Center for Sustainable Communities (CSC) at Temple University in 2002 with responsibilities for GIS research and education, grant writing and web site design. He is the Principal Investigator and or lead GIS specialist on a number of on-going and completed research projects including the Philadelphia Metro Area Hunger Relief and Community Food Access Study, 3-D GIS Visualization of Fort Washington Office Park Improvement Study, Temple-Villanova Sustainable Stormwater Initiative, Pennypack Watershed Act167 Plan and Upper Dublin Environmental Resources Inventory.

His work has been published in Environmental Management, The Handbook of Research on Geoinformatics (Karimi, ed. 2008), Artificial Crime Analysis Systems: Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information (Liu and Eck, eds. 2008), Encyclopedia of World Poverty (Odekom, ed. 2006) and Planning.

Mr. Meenar teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in GIS applications, Urban Design and Internet and Digital Technologies in Planning. He has also conducted numerous non-credit GIS application course. He serves as a voting member of the Ambler Campus Sustainability Council (ACSC). He also oversees CRP student tech fee and organizes departmental activities at the annual EarthFest event, which draws 12,000 students to campus for a day of environmental education.

Mr. Meenar received a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo) with a specialization in Information Technology and GIS in 2002. He worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Urban Studies and the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth at SUNY Buffalo from 2000 to 2002.

He earned a bachelor degree in Architecture from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) in 1997 and later joined as a lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Planning at Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. He also worked as a professional architect from 1997 to 1999.

Courses Taught:

C+R PLN 2114/8114 Urban Form and Design (undergraduate and graduate)

C+R PLN 2524/5525 Geographic Information Systems (undergraduate)/ Spatial Analysis Techniques (graduate)

C+R PLN 5525 Advanced Techniques in GIS (graduate)

C+R PLN 3860/8860 Topics in Community and Regional Planning: Internet and Digital Technologies in Planning (undergraduate and graduate, videoconferenced)