Bish Sanyal is Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)/ Humphrey Fellows Program at MIT. He is currently also director of the Comprehensive Initiative for Technology Evaluation (CITE) – a major project to evaluate technologies for the poor sponsored by USAID.

Professor Sanyal joined MIT in 1984, served as the Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning from 1994 to 2002 and was the Chair of the Faculty at MIT from 2007 to 2009. From 2010 to 2012, he served as  head of the International Development Group within the department. Professor Sanyal’s research, publication and leadership experience reflect the multi-disciplinary nature of the field of Urban Planning. With degrees in Architecture and City Planning, and a strong interest in the interconnection between the developing world and the United States, Sanyal has long held an interest in planning theory and international planning education. He was nominated as a MacVicar Faculty Fellow at MIT in 2011. He has written on both procedural and substantive planning theories with empirical work on urban housing, informal employment, non-governmental organizations.  He is one of the founders  of the Global Planning Educators Interest Group within the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He is currently heading an effort to create the first private university of urban and regional planning in India and developing two edited volumes—Hidden Successes and A History of Planning Ideas. Professor Sanyal’s CV can be found here.