Summer Programs For High School StudentsNew York City

Richard Plunz is a professor in Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and has been director of the School’s Urban Design Program since 1992. After receiving professional degrees in engineering and architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Plunz specialized in urbanism related to both urban history and application of cybernetic and information theory to urban development. Plunz has held professorships at Rensselaer, Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). He has taught and lectured extensively and internationally and is considered a leading figure in all aspects of sustainable urban design. In 2005, Plunz was appointed Director of the Urban Design Lab at Columbia's Earth Institute.