William J. Mitchell holds the Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. (1954) Professorship and directs the MIT Design Laboratory and the Smart Cities group at the Media Laboratory. He was formerly Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and Head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, both at MIT. During the recent period of extensive construction of major projects on the MIT campus, he served as Architectural Advisor to the President of MIT.
Before coming to MIT, he was the Travelstead Professor of Architecture and director of the Master in Design Studies program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; he has also served as head of the Architecture/Urban Design program at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and he has taught at Yale, Carnegie-Mellon, and Cambridge universities. Professor Mitchell holds degrees from the University of Melbourne, Yale University, and Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Mitchell's research focuses upon new technologies in architecture, urban design, and product design. His books include City of Bits, E-topia, Me++, Placing Words: Symbols, Space and the City, and most recently Imagining MIT: Designing a Campus for the 21 Century. His latest, World’s Greatest Architect, is forthcoming from the MIT Press. He writes a monthly column for Building Design in London, and has also served as a regular columnist for the Royal Institute of British Architects Journal.
