Pnina Plaut (Technion) –Institutional Coordinator Technion,  Engineering, Technology and Planning Group head

Pnina Plaut (Associate Prof.) - is the Chair of the Graduate Program in Urban and Regional Planning  at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion - IIT.  She holds a BSc in Civil Engineering, MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technion, and a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Fields of interests: Transportation and Land Use Planning and Policy, Impacts of Infrastructure (Transportation and Telecommunications) on Economic Development, Urban/Regional Structure and the Environment. Special interest in Social Networks, Travel Behaviour and Urban Structure.  Prof. Plaut, is the Initiator, Coordinator and Chair of the EU TUD COST Action TU1305 titled: Social Networks and Travel Behaviour.  Prof. Plaut is leading a research group at the Center for City and Regional Studies -CCRS devoted to the investigation of “health promoting environments” focusing on the impact of the built environment on health including: “active” transport and active living by design. She recently advised a master's student whose thesis evaluated the urban planning factors that influence evacuation under various tsunami wave conditions using a coastal community case study. She is also supervising a master student whose thesis focuses on incorporating underground civilian shelters in city planning and outline plans. The research is exploring ways for combining civil protection in urban underground space.