Wendy Guan Zhen Tan

Field of work

Dr. Wendy Tan, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Business, Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, Norway, brings a decade of experience as an architect, urban designer, and planner in Europe and Asia to her role. She is also a senior researcher and lecturer at the Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning chair of the Environmental Sciences Group at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, and serves as the research coordinator for the Foundation of Managing Public Space.

Dr. Tan's research expertise and practical background have significantly contributed to the research focused on land use and transport integration (LUTI), citizen participation, and democracy in planning. Her work has taken her across North America, Australia, Scandinavia, and Southeast Asia, exploring the comparative aspects of the planning discipline and dealing with the classic dilemma of planning: the design-policy-implementation gaps.

Recently, her focus has shifted towards examining concepts of justice and equality in relation to mobility equality, inclusivity, and diversity. She has developed methodologies in socio-spatial analysis using digital tools and data science, and employs multidisciplinary methods from ethnography to social psychology to demography.

In 2014, she was honoured with the George Alleart Prize for her dissertation on contributions to mobility and spatial planning academia and practice. From 2010-2014, she served as a board member of the Megacities Foundation. Over the past decade, Dr. Tan has secured more than €3 million in funding for EU and national projects and has successfully supervised and co-supervised the completion of 4 PhDs. She is a member of the AESOP transportation thematic group and part of the international advisory board of the journal Urban Policy and Research.