Assistant or Associate Professor of Urban Design

The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) seeks to appoint a candidate as an assistant or associate professor (tenure track) in urban design. Candidates must exhibit excellence in scholarship and/or the application of design skills to the city and the built environment and will be expected to teach in the core urban design curriculum. Located in the GSD’s Department of Urban Planning and Design, the Urban Design Program leverages innovative connections between design, planning, and real estate study and practice and provides a potential locus for collaborative activities across Harvard University’s graduate degree programs.

To best engage contemporary urban challenges in the United States and across the globe, this position is part of a cluster of hires currently being undertaken by the Department of Urban Planning and Design.

Information about the GSD and Department of Urban Planning and Design:

In the pursuit of more productive, equitable, sustainable, and appealing built and natural environments, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) offers a dynamic setting for the exchange of ideas across the fields of urban planning, urban design, real estate, architecture, landscape architecture, design studies, and design engineering.

Composed of internationally experienced scholars and practitioners, the Urban Planning and Design Department’s faculty explores the built environment from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and points of view. The Department offers graduate degrees in urban planning, urban design, and real estate and features a pedagogically diverse array of interdisciplinary studios, lecture courses, seminars, and independent study that consider practical and theoretical issues affecting cities and metropolitan areas around the world. Roughly 250 students drawn from around the world work together and with the faculty to create an intimate and engaged educational atmosphere in which students thrive and learn.

The Department’s embrace of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is built on the firm conviction that both classroom and community experiences are enriched by creating space for multiple perspectives to be surfaced, understood, and valued. Such conditions produce optimal learning environments and healthy interpersonal relationships. The Department is committed to translating these values into its programmatic policies, practices, pedagogy, and methods of engagement in classroom settings, with one another and the world outside the GSD. We believe that if we insist on a diversity of voices among ourselves, our students will insist on a diversity of voices in the processes and outcomes of their professional work.

Additional Information:

The school seeks to attract and retain individuals who possess a quality of mind demonstrating high levels of intelligence, clarity of expression, analytical ability, critical judgment, creativity, and initiative. It also values individuals who support free inquiry and expression by others and constructive, collegial collaborations with faculty, staff, and students. In the school’s evaluation of candidates, desirable individual qualities and high potential are not substitutes for a record of creative and productive achievement. Accomplished contributions to the field through scholarship and/or design are essential to effective teaching over time. Continued study and investigation with public exposition of research and professional accomplishments are normal obligations for Harvard faculty members.

The position of assistant professor is intended for individuals pursuing full-time academic careers who have some teaching experience and whose creative work in scholarship, design/research work, or professional practice, or a combination thereof, indicates that they have a promising future in their academic career and may someday be viable candidates for tenure.

The position of associate professor is intended for individuals pursuing full-time academic careers who are highly effective teachers and whose creative work in scholarship, design/research work, or professional practice, or a combination thereof, indicates they are making excellent progress in their academic careers and that they will likely be viable candidates for tenure in the future.

Please visit the Harvard Academic Positions for more information and to apply: https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/11523