July 2026

Welcome, Saad!

Saad Mohammad Abrar is joining the lab as a postdoctoral scholar. Coming from a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Maryland, his work asks whether mobility and behavioral data — and the models built from them — are actually reliable, fair, and valid for high-stakes public decision-making.

We're thrilled to welcome Saad Mohammad Abrar to the Urban Data Research Lab as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara. Saad earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, where his research focused on evaluating whether mobility and behavioral data — and the models built from them — are reliable, fair, and valid for high-stakes public decision-making. His work sits right at the intersection of what the lab cares about: using new data sources to answer urban and social questions, while taking seriously the question of when those data actually can (and can't) be trusted for policy.