Julia Gabriele Harten

Julia Gabriele Harten is an Assistant Professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy (2020) and prior degrees from European institutions, including Münster University and Free University of Berlin. Her research focuses on housing strategies of marginalized groups, socio-spatial inequality, and data innovation for urban planning, with a geographic emphasis on Asia and North America. She is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Data Innovation for Housing and Inclusive Urbanization.

Affiliations: Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, UBC Centre for Chinese Research, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, and Urban China Zoom Talk Series.

Research Interests: Combines big data methods (e.g., web-scraping, machine learning) with ethnographic research to study private rental markets, housing vulnerability, and urban mobility. Recent work includes analyses of rental discounts, hybrid deep learning for text analysis in planning, and exclusionary language in shared housing ads.

Awards & Grants: CMHC Gold Roof Award (2024), funded projects on housing needs assessments, and recognition in the Bridging Divides Research Program.

Teaching: Courses include Urban Economics (PLAN 512), Urban Analytics (PLAN 548R), and Real Estate Development in Planning. Designated courses emphasize data methods and market-planning intersections.