Vitor Pessoa Colombo

Expertise

  • Informal settlements
  • Urban health
  • Southern urbanisms
  • Household surveys
  • Site surveys / mapping
  • Spatial Analysis / Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
  • Latin America
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • International collaboration
Vitor is an architect by training who grew up in Brazil before moving to Switzerland. His personal experience fostered a particular interest in urban planning challenges raised by socio-spatial segregation and inequitable urbanization.
His research focuses on habitat and health issues resulting from rapid and largely "informal" urban growth in the Global South, while reflecting on the role of geographic information as a tool for both spatial transformation and social development. In this sense, his work is based on geographic information systems (GIS), including participatory mapping based on mobile data collection tools. Throughout his work, Vitor has developed transdisciplinary partnerships with various actors in Switzerland, Brazil, Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire.

Education

Docteur ès Sciences (PhD)

| Urban planning and public health

2019 – 2023 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Master of Science

| Architecture

2011 – 2013 Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio

Bachelor of Science

| Architecture

2006 – 2009 École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Selected publications

Environmental determinants of access to shared sanitation in informal settlements: a cross-sectional study in Abidjan and Nairobi

Pessoa Colombo, V., Chenal, J., Orina, F., Meme, H., Koffi, J.A.A., Koné B., Utzinger J.
Published in Infectious Diseases of Poverty in

Spatial Distributions of Diarrheal Cases in Relation to Housing Conditions in Informal Settlements: A Cross-Sectional Study in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Pessoa Colombo, V., Chenal, J., Koné B., Koffi, J.A.A., Utzinger J.
Published in Journal of Urban Health in

Comparing Volunteered Data Acquisition Methods on Informal Settlements in Mexico City and São Paulo: A Citizen Participation Ladder for VGI

Santos, A.P., Pessoa Colombo, V., Heider, K., Rodriguez-Lopez, J.M.
Published in Socio-Environmental Research in Latin America. The Latin American Studies Book Series. in