Derek Ouyang

I graduated from Stanford University in 2013 with dual Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering and Architectural Design, and in 2015 with a Master’s in Structural Engineering. I’m Executive Director of City Systems, a nonprofit consultancy, and a Research Director at Stanford’s Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab. Previously, I taught architecture at The Nueva School and worked on urban design under the name Cloud Arch Studio. I grew up in Arcadia, lived for some time in downtown San Francisco, and now live in Walnut Creek.

• Research on Google Scholar
• Podcast appearances
• ‘Best Of’ Lists
• Book reviews on Goodreads
• Film reviews on Letterboxd
• Playlists on Spotify
• Photography on Flickr (pre-2015)

Features:

• 12/17/25 – SF AI Forum, participated in a panel on AI in government.
• 3/30/25 – National Planning Conference, presented unpermitted ADU research.
• 2/2/25 – “Life and Death Decision-Making through Algorithms,” Sustainability Now! podcast on KSQD.
• 11/14/23 – “Meet the Stanford grad who created a ‘plug-in’ ADU to solve the housing crisis,” Palo Alto Online.
• 11/10/23 – “10 big ideas to help fix San Francisco,” a SF Chronicle project.
• 11/1/23 – “Deploying Data-Driven Solutions for Public Health,” Stanford Impact Labs.
• 2/21/23 – “What do you get when you cross academia with government?” SF Chronicle’s Fixing Our City Podcast. An interview about my work at RegLab and Aduo.
• 10/21/22 – “Much nothing (so far) about ADUs,” panel at Housing Leadership Day 2022.
• 10/3/22 – “Adaptation and Equity,” researcher panel at the Climate Summit for San Mateo County 2022.
• 2/23/22 – “Why Environmental Justice Is Crucial in Climate Resilience: Just Look at New Sea Level Rise Predictions,” KQED. Includes a quote from me about flooding research I co-authored.
• 11/22/21 – “Rising Seas, Rising Inequity?” guest lecture at Center for Blue Economy MIIS.
• 8/27/21 – “How Stanford scholars collaborated with county health officials and a local community to allocate COVID-19 resources, address health disparities,” Stanford News. Highlighting research I co-authored.
• 6/21/21 – “‘Communities Know Best’: Climate Solutions in The South Bay Start With Listening,” KQED. Radio segment and article featuring my community-based work in San Mateo County.
• 5/13/21 – A spotlight on the Placekey Blog.
• 2/8/21 – “Finding the COVID-19 Victims that Big Data Misses,” Stanford HAI. Highlighting research I co-authored.
• 8/19/20 – “COVID-19 Spatial Research,” MapScaping Podcast. An interview I did about work by my practicum course at Stanford.
• 8/5/20 – “Sea level rise to choke Bay Area traffic as far away as Santa Rosa, Napa, study shows,” SF Chronicle. Highlighting research I co-authored.
• 5/20/20 – “SafeGraph Data Consortium Seminar – Leveraging Data To Support Local Government And NonProfit Partners In COVID-19 Response.” A presentation of work by my practicum course at Stanford.
• 8/21/19 – “Behavior Change Case Study: City Systems & Affordable Housing,” Meeting of the Minds. A discussion of my nonprofit work in East Palo Alto.
• 3/7/19 – “Explore Stanford Summer Institutes,” Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies. Some comments from me about my experience teaching high school students.
• 11/28/18 – “Stockton’s Revival – Universal Basic Income, Collective Impact and Economic Empowerment,” Meeting of the Minds. A video recording of a discussion I moderated with FUSE Fellow Ann Rogan and Mayor Michael Tubbs.
• 5/25/18 – “Built for Health: Public Spaces and Urban Design,” USGBC. A podcast interview I did about my experiences with urban design.
• 12/1/14 – “Re-engineering the Start.Home CORE for the Developing World with Derek Ouyang,” Stanford+Connects Seattle.
• 10/9/14 – “Thinking Outside the Bubble: Project-Based Learning in the 21st Century with Derek Ouyang,” Stanford+Connects NY.
• 9/4/14 – “Home Energy’s 30 under 30,” Home Energy Magazine.
• 6/14/14 – “Pop Up Studio Explores Participation Design at London Festival of Architecture,” ArchDaily. Highlighting a design project I worked on.
• 6/20/13 – “The House That Teaches: Derek Ouyang at TEDxStanford.”
• 10/15/13 – “Derek Ouyang, home improver with a green goal,” LA Times.

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