William J. Mitchell and the members of his Smart Cities research group are creating innovative ways to change how we live in urban areas through, in part, the application of new technologies that enable urban energy efficiency and sustainability, and enhance opportunity, equity, and cultural creativity. Smart Cities research is particularly concerned with the emerging roles of networked intelligence in fabrication and construction, urban mobility, building design and intelligently responsive operation, and public space. The group explores the new forms and functions of cities in the digital electronic era, and suggests design and planning directions for the future.

Mitchell is the former dean of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. Before coming to MIT, he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and Yale, Carnegie-Mellon, and Cambridge universities. He holds a BArch from the University of Melbourne, an MED from Yale University, and an MA from Cambridge. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he was awarded the annual Appreciation Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan, and he is chair of the National Academies Committee on Information Technology and Creativity. A prolific author, his most recent book is Imagining MIT: Designing a Campus for the 21st Century.

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