Newswise — BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, February 23, 2021 — Debra Laefer, Professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and Rae Zimmerman, Professor Emerita of Planning and Public Administration at NYU Wagner, are awardees of the Civic Innovation Challenge, a national competition to drive research and collaborative action in urban resiliency and smart and connected communities. Their project, Unification for Underground Resilience Measures (UNUM), supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), aims to bolster the ability of first New York City and, ultimately, of cities nationwide to prepare for and respond to crises and disasters by making critical information on community infrastructure robust, open, transparent, and easy for key stakeholders to share and act upon.