Javier Babí Almenar is an assistant professor in urban ecology at the Research Group in Ecology at Politecnico di Milano. He studies urban areas as ecosystems, conceiving them as socio-ecological-technological systems. Through a better understanding of urban ecosystems and their dynamics, he aims to advance a sustainable and resilient territorial (re)development that preserves natural capital and human well-being. To achieve that aim, he does cross-disciplinary research integrating knowledge and techniques from ecology, geographic information sciences, life cycle assessment, and landscape and urban planning. He is deeply interested in science for policy, shaping his research to be valuable for policymaking. Currently, his research focuses on ecosystem accounting and on the characterization and modelling of urban nature-based solutions and ecosystem services.
Dr. Babí Almenar received a BSc degree in Environmental Sciences from University of Valencia (Spain), MSc degree in Landscape Ecology from Cranfield University (UK), and a BSc+March degree in Architecture, specializing in Urban Planning and Design, from Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). He pursued a double PhD, obtaining a PhD in Environmental Chemistry at University of Bordeaux (France) and in Environmental Engineering at University of Trento (Italy). Before joining Politecnico di Milano, he has been landscape ecology and planning consultant in the UK, researcher at Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), and scientific policy officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.