We are delighted to announce that our PhD student Henri Debray has successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “Characterizing Urban Morphology at a Global Scale: Geospatial Perspectives,” at the Technical University of Munich, where his research project was conducted.
Henri’s thesis builds on a series of his scientific publications investigating the structure and spatial patterns of the built environment across the globe. It combines analyses of the socio-political contexts shaping intra-urban development with a comprehensive assessment of urban morphology and its geographical distribution—addressed here in a consistent global framework for the first time.
The work was supervised by Prof. Zhu at the Technical University of Munich and Prof. Taubenböck, head of the Chair of Global Urbanization and Remote Sensing at EORC. It also reflects strong collaboration between the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the University of Würzburg, and TUM.
We warmly congratulate Henri on this accomplishment and wish him continued success in his future endeavors.








