Dr Sara Shirowzhan
Senior Lecturer
PhD from UNSW Faculty of Engineering
Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
School of Built Environment
Dr Sara Shirowzhan is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Built Environment. ScholarGPS 2025 benchmarking positions her research within the top 1% of researchers globally in key specialties, including Digital Twin and Smart City research, the top 2% in Informatics, the top 7% in Machine Learning, and the top 8% in Sustainability, reflecting recognised international leadership in highly competitive fields.
Dr Shirowzhan’s research has informed policy and practice, including citation in NSW Government policy documents, and has received significant external recognition through major awards, such as the Outstanding Paper Award from the International Society for Digital Earth.
Her research focuses on technologies relevant to the built environment, including AI, advanced GIS, nD BIM, sensing technologies, and digital twins, with applications in sustainable and resilient cities (SDG 11), smart cities, infrastructure, urban strategy development, and construction.
Dr Shirowzhan teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students in City Analytics, GIS, Construction Informatics, and BIM‑related topics at UNSW.
She currently serves as an Editorial Board Member of the Q1 journals Nature/Scientific Reports, Sustainability (MDPI), and Buildings. Dr Shirowzhan has also served as UNSW Co‑Lead of the Work Integrated Learning Education Community of Practice and as Co‑Convenor of the Smart Cities and Infrastructure Cluster in the School of Built Environment.
E-mail
Location
Red Centre West Wing
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
BIM/PIM and 3D GIS: progressing precinct modelling - $48,041
Western Sydney agri food analytics and mapping - $90,000
Improving coordination of data and actors for disaster-responsive housing and safer communities - AHURI- $164,881
An AI Trustworthy Lease Interpretation Tool for Vulnerable Renters, UNSW-UTS Trustworthy Digital Society (TDS) program, $119,656.
Uncovering Hidden Lessons in WIL: Institutional Mapping of Needs, Sharing Knowledge and AI-Driven Opportunities, $10,000
2025 Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), Western Australia (WA) award for Planning Research on AURI research on Improving coordination of data and actors for disaster-responsive housing and safer communities.
2023 Outstanding paper award by The International Society for Digital Earth, in collaboration with Taylor & Francis and International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, for our paper titled "City Digital Twins: Their Maturity Level and Differentiation from 3D City Models", link to the paper here
PhD scholarship
Postdoctoral writing fellow
Best master’s thesis award
GIS and City Analytics
SDG11 -Sustainable and resilient cities and communities
Net- Zero carbon
Remote Sensing e.g. lidar
BIM
Digital twins
Artificial intelligence (AI)/ Machine learning (ML)
Bushfire/flood analysis
Housing development
Digital construction
Construction informatics
SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities)
Women in construction ambassador
Women in planning network
CIOB tomorrow’s leaders champion
Editorial Board member of Nature, Scientific Reports
Editorial Board member of Sustainability, MDPI
Editorial Board member of Buildings, MDPI
UNSW Built Environment Co- convenor of Smart Cities and Infrastructure cluster
UNSW Co-lead of Work Integrated Learning Community of Practice
My Teaching
Urban and Construction Informatics
GIS for the Built Environment
ICT and BIM
Digital Construction
Geodesign
Geo-computation with R (the course contains spatial statistics and AI for geospatial field)