Chris Pettit is Scientia Professor and Director of the City Futures Research Centre at UNSW Sydney, an internationally renowned institute that has delivered rigorous, applied public-interest research on cities since 2005. Professor Pettit’s work sits at the intersection of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, data science, urban planning and city shaping, with a focus on translating advanced analytics into better urban decision-making.

In 2018, he founded the City Analytics Lab, followed by the establishment of the Housing Analytics Lab in 2025 — both purpose-built facilities designed to better connect data, technology and people to support evidence-based city and housing policy. He is a past Chair and board member of CUPUM (Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management) and currently serves on the Planning Institute of Australia’s National PlanTech Advisory Committee and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) Scientific Committee.

Professor Pettit is also the founder of two start-up companies: Value Australia, an AI-enabled property valuation toolkit, and MapAI, an AI-powered assistant for spatial data.