Assoc. Prof. Dr. Horacio Samaniego

Horacio Samaniego challenges the "city as an organism" metaphor to address the problem of designing sustainable and equitable cities. He applies ecological theory to large-scale employment and mobile phone datasets to provide insight to long-standing questions relating diversity, productivity and scaling. How does occupational diversity drive economic productivity, and how do social interactions scale with urban size?

Urban Sciences, Complexity, Segregation and Ecological Theory

Horacio Samaniego is an Associate Professor at the Universidad Austral de Chile, where his work is situated at the intersection of ecology and urban science. Originally trained as an ecologist, he applies ecological theory to understand cities as complex adaptive systems. His research focuses on the relationship between diversity, productivity, and sustainability in socio-techno-ecological systems, using geodata to reveal urban dynamics. He is committed to bridging the gap between science and policy to foster environmental protection and human well-being.

Horacio Samaniego has led multiple projects funded by Chile's National R&D Agency (ANID), where he also serves on the grant evaluation committee. His international experience includes research fellowships at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico's computer science department, as well as a CAPES-PrInt Mobility Grant from the Brazilian Government.