Congratulations to recent City and Regional Planning alum Cheng-Kai Hsu on winning the 2026 GPEIG/ACSP Gill-Chin Lim Best Dissertation in International Planning Award for Extreme Heat and Road Safety in the Era of a Changing Climate and the Precariousness of the Gig Economy—Evidence from Taiwan and Latin America.
In recognition of the late Gill-Chin Lim's commitment to studying the humanistic aspects of globalization, GPEIG established this award in his name. It is funded annually by the Consortium of Development Studies (CODS), founded by Lim in 1982. The award recognizes superior scholarship in a doctoral dissertation completed by a student enrolled in an ACSP-member school.
Hsu will present his award-winning research at the 2026 ACSP Annual Conference in Pittsburgh during the Student Award Winners Paper Session, immediately following the ACSP Awards Ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 10. Check the conference app for the latest session details.
Hsu is an incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. He is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also earned his PhD in City and Regional Planning.
His research examines how climate change and environmental hazards shape transportation, mobility and public health, with a particular focus on extreme heat, air pollution and road safety. His work combines causal inference, environmental and spatial epidemiology, and large-scale mobility data to understand how cities and travelers respond to environmental risks and how these responses vary across populations and places.
His dissertation investigates how extreme heat affects road safety across different urban and socioeconomic contexts, including the particular vulnerabilities faced by gig-economy workers. His broader research seeks to inform more climate-resilient and healthy urban and transportation policy.
Read a Q&A with Cheng-Kai: https://www.acsp.org/page/Hsu2026