Bish Sanyal

Bish Sanyal is the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program for 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’s research, teaching, and academic leadership reflect his multidisciplinary education in architecture (BA) from IIT (Kharagpur), urban planning (MUP) from the University of Kansas, and international development planning (PhD) from the University of California in Los Angeles.

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 serves on the editorial board of six leading professional journals.

Sanyal is the recipient of: MIT’s prestigious MacVicar Award for exemplary contributions to the education of undergraduates at MIT; the Gill-Chin Lim Global Award for research on international development; the inaugural award for leadership on international development planning by ACSP’s Global Planning Educator’s Interest Group. In 2022, Sanyal received the highest professional honor – the Distinguished Educator Award, by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP).