International Advisory Committee

BISH SANYAL
Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

Bish Sanyal is the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)/Hubert Humphrey program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT from 1994 to 2002 and was Chair of the MIT faculty from   2007 to 2009. Sanyal was awarded MIT’s prestigious award for teaching – the     MacVicar Faculty Award – in 2011. Sanyal’s research, teaching and academic leadership reflect his multidisciplinary education in Architecture (B.A.) Urban Planning (MUP) and International Development Planning (PhD).

Sanyal has published extensively on urban development, particularly on the topic of spatial and economic integration of informal housing areas. He has also advised several bilateral and multilateral development agencies, along with governments in South Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. He also serves on the editorial board of six leading professional journals.

At present, Sanyal is advising the World Bank on a new initiative to evaluate the World Bank’s impact on influencing urban growth in developing countries. He is also advising Indonesia’s central planning agency, and the Bandung Institute of Technology on the relocation of the Indonesian capital from Jakarta to Kalimantan.

Sanyal recently completed a 10-million-dollar research project (sole Principal Investigator) to create a comprehensive initiative technology evaluation (CITE) at MIT.

He was awarded the highest professional award—the Distinguished Educator Award—by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Inc. (ACSP) in 2021.

CAREN LEVY
Professor of Transformative Urban Planning, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London

Caren Levy is Professor of Transformative Urban Planning at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), Faculty of the Built Environment, University      College London (UCL). She is an urban development planner with over 35 years’ experience of teaching, research, training and consultancy. She works on urban planning, community-led development and governance with a focus  on housing, transport and infrastructure and land management in urban areas in the Global South. She has a special interest in the institutionalisation of social justice in policy and planning, particularly related to cross-cutting issues of gender, diversity and the environment. With a strong commitment to contributing to transformative practice, she has explored and developed innovative approaches to planning methodology, planning education and capacity building. She works in London and with partners in a range of cities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East with communities, governments      and international organisations.

Caren Levy was Principal Investigator (PI) of a 4 ½ year GCRF supported research and capacity building programme, Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality (KNOW) (2017-22), which worked with 13 partners across 12 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She is a former Director of the Bartlett DPU (2005-12) and Vice Dean International for the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment (2012-18).

DEVESH KAPUR
Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies and Director of Asia Programs, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Devesh Kapur is Director of the Asia Programme at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C. From 2006 to 2018, he was the Director of CASI, Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and held the Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India. Prior to that, he was Associate Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and the Frederick Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University.

His research focusses on human capital, national and international public institutions and the ways in which local-global linkages, especially international migration and international institutions, affect political and economic change in developing countries, especially India. His book “Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of International Migration from India”, published by Princeton University Press in 2010, earned him a Distinguished Book Award from the International Studies Association. His recent books include “The Other One Percent: Indians in America”, (co-authored with Nirvikar Singh, and Sanjoy Chakravorty) and published in 2016 by Oxford University Press; The “Costs of Democracy: Political Finance in India”, (co-edited with Milan Vaishnav) and published in 2018 by Oxford University Press; and “Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance” (co-edited with Madhav Khosla), Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law, published in 2019. His most recent (co-edited) book, The Oxford Handbook of Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific, is forthcoming in August 2022.

EDGAR PIETERSE
Director, African Centre for Cities (ACC) and South African Research Chair in Urban Policy, University of Cape Town

Edgar Pieterse is an urban scholar, writer, curator and creative agent whose interests include the theory and practice of policy discourses and interventions to make the African city more just, open and accessible. He holds the South African Research Chair in Urban Policy at the University of Cape Town and is Director of the African Centre for Cities. Formerly a special policy advisor  to the premier of the Western Cape, Pieterse is the author of “City Futures: Confronting the Crisis of Urban Development” (2008), and “New Urban Worlds: Inhabiting Dissonant Times” (2017), co-authored with A M Simone. He is also co-editor of “Africa’s Urban Revolution” (2014) and “Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities” (2013). He is a member of the Research Advisory committees of the Gauteng City-region Observatory and LSE Cities. He was co-lead author of the Urban Chapter for the International Panel on Social Progress.

MICHAEL A COHEN
Director of International Affairs, Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy; Professor & Director of International Affairs, The New School for Public Engagement, New York

Michael Cohen is an urban and development policy specialist currently serving as Director of International Affairs at the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy; and Professor and Director of International Affairs at the New School for Public Engagement. He teaches courses on smart cities and urban values, the urban century, slums and urban development and urban strategies.

He worked at the World Bank from 1972–1999 and was responsible for much of the Bank’s urban policy development during that period. From 1994–1998, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Bank’s Vice-President for Environmentally Sustainable Development.

Cohen has worked in 55 countries and was involved in the World Bank’s work on infrastructure, environment and sustainable development. He has published several books on urban development, central Africa and the impact of development assistance. Cohen has advised governments, NGOs and academic institutions around the world. He was a member of the Infrastructure Panel and Urban Dynamics Panel of the US National Academy of Science. He has helped the United Nations Human Settlements Programme  (UN–Habitat) prepare its Global Report on Human Settlements from 2005–2012. He received his PhD in Political Economy from the University of Chicago.

RAHUL MEHROTRA
Chair Urban Planning & Design at Graduate School of Design, Harvard University and the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization

Rahul Mehrotra is a Professor of Urban Design and Planning and the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and has been a Founding Member of the IIHS Board since 2008. He is the  Founder Principal of RMA Architects which has studios in Mumbai and Boston. RMA Architects was founded in 1990 and has designed and executed projects including for government and private institutions, corporate workplaces, private homes, and unsolicited projects driven by the firm’s commitment to advocacy in the city of Mumbai. In 2012-2015, he led a Harvard University-wide research project with Professor Diana Eck, called The Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Mega City. This work was published as a book in 2014 and the research extended in 2017 in the form of a book titled Does Permanence Matter?. Mehrotra also co–authored a book  titled Taj Mahal: Multiple Narratives, which was published in Dec 2017. His most recent books are titled Working in Mumbai (2020) and The Kinetic City and Other Essays (2021). The former, a reflection on his practice, evolved through its association with the city of Bombay/Mumbai. The second book presents his writings over the last thirty years and illustrates his long-term engagement with and analysis of urbanism in India. This work has given rise to a new conceptualisation of the city which Mehrotra calls the Kinetic City.