Ayumi Arai is Project Assistant Professor of the Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo. She is co-leading the Spatial Data Commons, an initiative to support the use of big data and open technologies for addressing development problems. Ayumi is passionate about the use of mobile phone data for addressing data gaps in the Global South. She is a member of the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics (UNCEBD) Mobile Phone Data Task Team where she leads the Displacement and Disaster Statistics Subgroup. She is also a member of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) where she promotes using satellite images for human mobility analysis for supporting disaster risk reduction.
Previously, Ayumi worked for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). She obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Studies (Spatial Information Science) from The University of Tokyo, Master of International Development Studies (Development Economics) from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, and Master of Architectural Engineering from Waseda University.