Antonia Cornaro, MA Urban Planning (1996), studied at New York University and then gained valuable experience working for the City of New York’s Planning Department (DCP) in their Transportation Division on bicycle and pedestrian schemes.

She has 25 years of working experience as an urban and transport planner from the public and private sector from New York City, London, Vienna, and Zurich, having worked for NYC Department of City Planning, Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB now WSP), the Austrian Institute of Regional Planning (ÖIR), and the Zurich based multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm EBP.

In her current work as Expert Underground Space for Amberg Engineering, an internationally active Swiss firm specializing in underground infrastructure design and management, she focuses on Urban Underground Space with the aim to increase mobility, livability, and resilience of urban areas (since 2010 until today).

This is also central to her work as Co-Chair of ITACUS (the International Tunnel and Underground Space Association’s Committee on Underground Space. Antonia is passionate about cities, global and sustainable development, and has presented and published extensively on this subject, often jointly with Han Admiraal. Together with Han, she authored the book “Underground spaces unveiled: planning and creating the cities of the future” (more info: www.thinkdeep.net) which was published in 2018 and has received the ISOCARP Gerd Albers award on best book.

She also teaches part time at the Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. The course is a Semester lecture Planning of Underground Space and is taught to Master students in architecture, spatial development and civil engineering.