The University of Virginia’s School of Architecture recently announced that Malo André Hutson will take the helm as the school’s new dean. Currently the director of the Urban Planning Ph.D. Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), Hutson—a tenured professor—is the founder of the School’s Urban Community and Health Equity Lab and co-leads GSAPP’s Anti-Racism Task Force. At Columbia, he also serves as a member of the Provost’s Advisory Council for the Enhancement of Faculty Diversity, as an associate member of the Earth Institute, and as director of project development for Columbia World Projects, where he helped develop a portfolio of projects over $100 million, including several in Virginia.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the School of Architecture as dean,” Hutson said in a statement. “The A-School faculty and students are at the cutting edge of research, teaching, and creative practice. Collectively the A-School community is working to address some of the most pressing issues facing our society, ranging from climate resilience to environmental health and racial justice.”   

Hutson holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Master’s of City Planning in Regional and Economic development from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. He has received the Salzburg Global Fellowship, two Mellon Fellowships, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Scholar Postdoctoral Fellowship. Hutson’s research and consulting projects aim to engage in questions of equity in the built environment and local food systems, and his book The Urban Struggle for Economic, Environmental, and Social Justice: Deepening Their Roots (2016) explores coalition efforts of community residents, leaders, and unions to resist the forces of gentrification. 

Hutson will succeed his predecessor, dean Ila Berman, as of July 2021.