Dr Christopher Martin Standen

My research focuses on enhancing decision-making tools in urban planning – such as cost-benefit analysis and health impact assessment – to better reflect health and sustainability outcomes. Additionally, I aim to integrate health and sustainability considerations into urban planning and transport education, emphasising equity of access,...view more

I am a Research Fellow in Urban Development within the Faculty of Medicine and Health at UNSW Sydney.

I have a passion for teaching, evidenced by awards and consistently high student satisfaction scores. I am regularly invited by major media outlets to comment on urban planning and transport issues.

My areas of expertise include transport/land use planning, travel behaviour, health/environmental impact assessment, environmental management, welfare economics, econometrics, spatial data analytics, and data science.

Teaching experience includes transport policy, health impact assessment, supply chain planning/design, GIS/spatial data analytics, quantitative analysis for transport and logistics, data science, health inequalities, and visual data analytics.

Editorial board member for Oxford Open Infrastructure and Health and the Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research.

My Grants

City of Sydney Community Services Grant: "Community-led Health Impact Assessment of the Waterloo Redevelopment" (2025).

Public Health Wales: "Health in local development plans" (2024).

CPHCE Research Stream Seed Funding Scheme: "Embedding health into urban planning education" (2023).

NSW Ministry of Health: “NSW Active Transport Health Model Phase 3” (2021).

Healthy Urban Environments Collaboratory Seed Funding Scheme: "Waterloo housing estate redevelopment: Longitudinal assessment/study of residents’ health needs and circumstances (pilot project)" (2020).

University of Sydney Business School Pilot Research Grant: "Looking for Positives: Health, Wellbeing and Active Transport Following a Pandemic" (2020).

Charles Perkins Centre Seed Funding Scheme: “Evaluation of the health impact of new urban motorway infrastructure” (2019).

City of Sydney Environmental Grant: “Profiling of George Street cycleway users for a community social marketing program” (2014).

My Qualifications

PhD Transport Planning

Master of Environmental Management

BSc (Hons.) Physics, Computer Science

My Awards

Sydney Local Health District Innovation and Excellence Award: Health Innovation and Research, Highly Commended (2023)

Dean's Citation for Teaching, University of Sydney Business School (2020)

Australian Postgraduate Award Industry Scholarship (2013)

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

city and urban planning

travel behaviour

active transport

equity of access

cost-benefit analysis

public health

traffic modeling

equity

Areas of supervision

I welcome supervision enquiries about PhD/masters/honours research on:

urban planning, travel behaviour and health;
the relationships between them; and
translation into policy and practice.

Potential research topics/questions:

Exploring the design of interchanges with homelessness in mind (in partnership with Transport for NSW).
Social return on investment tool for infrastructure and transport projects (in partnership with Transport for NSW).
How to price-value the benefits of placemaking for the development of business cases (in partnership with Transport for NSW).
How to price-value the benefits of active transport (in partnership with Transport for NSW).
How well are public health and health equity considerations incorporated into urban planning education?
Improving modelling and forecasting for active travel (walking and cycling).

All enquiries should include a CV and a brief (about two pages) research proposal.

For information about scholarships, see https://research.unsw.edu.au/graduate-research-scholarships.

For information about admission requirements, see https://research.unsw.edu.au/submit-application.

My Engagement

Expert witness

NSW Parliament Inquiry into the impact of the Rozelle Interchange, May 2024

Consulting

Health impact assessment for Sydney Metro West project
Economic Active Transport Project to deliver a best-practice method to cost the health benefits of active transport in NSW