In a recent feature from MIT’s Spectrum, Professor Justin Steil draws on his experience as both a researcher and paramedic to uncover how extreme heat and natural disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable communities. From spikes in emergency calls in low-income neighborhoods to the long-term housing instability renters face after disasters, his work highlights the uneven realities of crisis response.
The takeaway? Smarter policy, better resource allocation, and more resilient communities can turn urgent data into lasting change.
🔗 Read more: https://betterworld.mit.edu/spectrum/issues/spring-2026/what-911-calls-and-natural-disaster-response-show/?device=mobile
Congratulations to our students on this incredible achievement! On April 28, 2026, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston announced the winners of its Affordable Housing Development Competition, bringing together graduate students across architecture, planning, real estate, finance, and policy to tackle real-world housing challenges.
The winning proposal, Gilman Junction, was led by DUSP students Kavish Gandhi, Phoebe Meyerson, Ben Paltiel, and Henry Walther, alongside collaborators from MIT Architecture and Harvard. Working closely with community partners Just A Start and the Somerville Community Land Trust, ICON Architecture, and finance mentor David Aiken, the team developed a visionary approach to affordable housing in Somerville.
Special thanks to faculty mentors Will Monson, Leslie Reid, and Gabrielle Aitcheson for their guidance and support.
🔗Click here to learn more about the competition and winning proposal: /proposal-
to-build-affordable-housing-in-somerville-wins-affordable-housing-competition/
Congratulations to Katerina Cizek on her appointment to Canada’s National Advisory Group on the modernization of the country’s audiovisual sector.
At MIT, Cizek is artistic director, research scientist, and co-founder of the Co-Creation Studio at the MIT Open Documentary Lab (@opendoclab , @mitdusp ), where her work explores new forms of documentary storytelling grounded in collaboration with communities. Her practice spans photography, film, and digital media, and focuses on the relationship between media, place, and lived experience.
She is currently directing a short social history film on the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse (the “MET”), to be released in February 2027 following the School of Architecture and Planning’s move to the building.
“I am honoured by this invitation to consider Future Media in Canada… We do this work at a critical moment globally for media, place and culture in the public interest.”
🔗 More at the link in bio.
📷 Photo: Jamie Hogge and Kat Cizek
@mitsap@mitdusp
Jason Jackson of MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning was recently featured in The Boston Globe, offering expert insight on Boston’s new food delivery permit rules and their potential unintended consequences for workers in the platform economy. His commentary highlights the complex relationship between innovation, regulation, and urban labor systems.
🔗Click Here to read more: /2026/04/23/metro/unintended-consequences-of-bostons-food-delivery-permits-for-uber-eats-doordash/
🔗Click Here for Paywall Free Version: /popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx? artguid=4aa48ebb-5037-4bOa-a4af-
e2a16cd86c66&appcode=BOSUAT&eguid=1c1db545-c246-433f-94be-3cea878be68f&pnum=2
Congratulations to MIT DUSP alum Ariel H. Bierbaum on the forthcoming release of her new book, Schools for Sale: Disinvestment, Dispossession, and School Building Reuse in Philadelphia, published by the University of Chicago Press and arriving in June 2026. Building on her dissertation research on school closures in Philadelphia, this book reflects nearly a decade of ongoing scholarship tracing the lives and conditions of these former school buildings.
We are proud to see the impact of her work and honored that MIT DUSP helped support her early scholarly journey.
🔗Click Here to purchase Schools for Sale: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/b0268432754.html
👏 We’re excited to introduce the 2026 MAD Design Fellows!
The ten Design Fellows are MIT graduate students working at the intersection of design and multiple disciplines. Fellows pursue a research project and participate in seminars bridging perspectives in design across the institute.
2026 FELLOWS: (slide 1, pictured left to right)
— THOMAS HYO-MIN KING: Master, Architecture; Master, City Planning
— YUKI GRAY: Master, Architecture
— TEMUULEN ENKHBAT: Master, Urban Studies and Planning
— JOSEPH MULENGA NTAIMO: PhD, Mechanical Engineering
— ANITA LIN: Master, Architectural Studies
— STEPHEN BRADE: PhD, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
— MAGGIE NELSON: PhD, Materials Science and Engineering
— DANIEL MASSIMINO: PhD, Mechanical Engineering
— LING XU: Master, Mechanical Engineering
— CASSANDRA OVERNEY, PhD, MIT Media Lab
💥 Congratulations to the 2026 Fellows!
🔗 Read the full Introduction to the Fellows, link in bio
📸 photo by Qingyang Xie
@mitarchitecture@mitdusp@mitmeche@miteecs@mitdmse@mitmedialab@cccxmit@mitdesignx
Los Angeles based DUSP alumni hosted a meet-and-greet on April 13th, 2026, with City Councilmember Nithya Raman (MCP “04), who is running for Mayor of Los Angeles, to discuss housing, infrastructure, and the future of the city.
Always great to see the DUSP network engaging with the issues we care about!
DUSP Students of Color Council organized the Boston Career Trek this semester, bringing the current students together with alumni making change across the city.
They visited:
- Boston Transportation Department - Vineet Gupta (MCP ‘88), Director of Policy and Planning
- Metropolitan Area Planning Council - Lafayette Cruise (MCP ‘19), Regional Arts &
Culture Planner & Annis Sengupta (MCP ‘11), Director of Arts & Culture
- Affordable Housing Institute - Anya Raredon (MCP ‘11), CEO & Anushka Shahdadpuri (MCP ‘24) and Hannah Leung (MCP ‘25), Senior Analysts
Thank you to our incredible alumni for opening your doors and sharing your journeys, to SCC student organizers Allison and Temuulen (MCP ‘27), and to all the students who participated!
DUSP PhD student JS Tan’s Value Added newsletter was recently cited in The New York Review of Books, adding important contextual complexity to Yi-Ling Liu’s commentary on Dan Wang’s book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.
🔗Value Added Newsletter: https://www.valueadded.tech
🔗The New York Review of Books: /articles/2026/04/09/shenzhen-express-house-of-huawei-breakneck/
When the power goes out on the big electric grid, standalone “microgrids” can help businesses, neighborhoods, and towns keep the lights on. 💡 Prof. David Hsu of @mitdusp tells us how communities around the world (including MIT!) are powering up microgrids in order to keep electricity flowing, even when the larger grid goes dark.
Host: Aaron Krol
Video production: Jessie Barrett
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
Stock footage: Vecteezy.com
Congratulations to Professor Albert Saiz on receiving the David Ricardo Medal from the American Real Estate Society this March. This prestigious award recognizes over two decades of influential research that has advanced real estate knowledge and shaped both academic thought and professional practice.
This is a well-deserved honor reflecting the lasting impact of his work.
🔗Learn more: /page/Awardshistory
🚶 What does the city sound like? This festival wants you to walk to find out.
The Walking Festival of Sound (@walking_festival_of_sound ) is underway in Boston and Cambridge, inviting participants to slow down, step outside, and listen closely to the places they move through every day.
MIT lecturer Garnette Cadogan is among the artists and researchers leading the way. Cadogan, who teaches a course on cities at night in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (@mitdusp ), will lead a group night walk with 40 participants, crossing from Boston into Cambridge. For Cadogan, the night is not a backdrop for fear or entertainment, but a space for contemplation and discovery — a chance to engage with the city's layered histories and sounds.
The festival, organized by artist and researcher Jacek Smolicki as part of his Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (@harvardgsd ), brings together 17 practitioners and 16 local institutional partners for 19 soundwalks, listening sessions, and lectures running through May 3. All events are free and open to the public.
🔗 The event was spotlighted in wbur (@wbur ) by Artemisia Luk. More at the link in bio.
📷 Images courtesy of the Walking Festival of Sound and Robin Lubbock/WBUR
🗓️ Next event featuring Garnette Cadogan, Julie Shapiro (@jatomic ), and Jacek Smolicki (@jacek_smolicki ): April 23, 6-7:30 PM / Harvard Artlab (@harvardartlab )
@mit@mitdusp@mitsap
