President Lee Bollinger announced the appointment of Professor Weiping Wu as the new Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture and Mario Gooden as the new Interim Director of the Master of Architecture program in an email sent earlier today.

Professor Weiping Wu will serve as Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) beginning January 1, according to an email sent to Columbia students by President Bollinger. Professor Wu currently serves as a Professor of Urban Planning and the Director of the MS and Ph.D. programs in Urban Planning at GSAPP. She is also a faculty member of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Columbia Population Research Center, and is a board member of the Planning Accreditation Board. In the past, she served as the President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) and as an editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Professor Wu joined Columbia as a faculty member in 2016 after serving as Professor and Chair in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. In her work, she is an expert in global urbanization and the issues of migration, housing, and infrastructure in Chinese cities.

This announcement follows the announcement in May that the GSAPP’s current Dean, Amale Andraos, would be leaving her current role to become the Special Advisor to President Bollinger. 

In addition to concluding her term as dean, Andraos will also be stepping down from her role as Director of the Master of Architecture program. Professor Mario Gooden will serve as the Interim Director of the program, beginning in January. Professor Gooden is an alumnus of GSAPP and currently serves as a Professor of Professional Practice, the Sequence Director for Advanced Architecture Studios, and Co-Director of the Global Africa Lab. His work examines the intersectionality of architecture, race, gender, sexuality, and technology and he has exhibited his work at multiple international venues. He is also the Founding Principal at Huff + Gooden Architects.

President Bollinger’s email can be found in its entirety below.

Email sent by President Bollinger to Columbia students on Wednesday, November 10 at 12:06 pm:

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

I write to announce my appointment of Weiping Wu as Interim Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), effective January 1, 2022, following the conclusion of Amale Andraos’s tenure as Dean. Professor Wu is a distinguished urban and planning scholar who has spent her career researching and teaching city planning, with a focus on the global South and on China. She is currently Professor of Urban Planning and Director of the MS and PhD programs in Urban Planning at GSAPP.

Weiping joined the Columbia faculty in 2016, after serving as Professor and Chair in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. She is an expert in global urbanization and in issues of migration, housing, and infrastructure in Chinese cities. She has written extensively about these subjects—analyzing how China’s unprecedented process of urbanization affects populations and the built environment, with empirically grounded theorization in a global context.

Weiping is on the faculty of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Columbia Population Research Center. She is also a board member of the Planning Accreditation Board and a past President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), as well as past editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research, ACSP’s flagship journal. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and Tsinghua University, trained in urban planning and architecture.

When Amale Andraos concludes her term as Dean, she will also be stepping down from her role as Director of the Master of Architecture program. Mario Gooden has graciously agreed to serve as Interim Director of the program, beginning in January. Mario is an alumnus of GSAPP and a celebrated architect whose work examines the intersectionality of architecture, race, gender, sexuality, and technology. At Columbia, he is a Professor of Professional Practice, the Sequence Director for Advanced Architecture Studios, and Co-Director of the Global Africa Lab. He is also the Founding Principal at Huff + Gooden Architects. Mario has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the International Architecture Exhibition at the Biennale in Venice, Italy, the Architekturmuseum der TU München in Munich, Germany, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is also the author of Dark Space: Architecture, Representation, Black Identity (Columbia University Press, 2016) as well as numerous essays and articles on architecture, art, and cultural production. Mario is a Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg and a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. His firm is currently designing The Woodson African American Museum of Florida.

Weiping and Mario are exceptional educators and leaders, and I offer them my profound thanks for agreeing to serve in these important interim roles, as the search for Amale Andraos’s successor proceeds.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger

Avery Hall via Wikimedia Commons