Matthew Jordan Miller, postdoctoral fellow in City and Regional Planning

Recently, one of PennDesign's newest post doctoral fellows, Matthew Jordan Miller was featured in a story for the Philadlephia Tribune. Below are some excerpts. Full story here.

Matthew Miller is among the first African-American men to obtain a doctorate in urban planning from the University of Southern California, and among the first Black men to become a postdoctoral fellow in the City and Regional Planning Department at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design.

“We have a lot of strength in housing, community and economic development in our department,” said Lisa Servon, professor and chair in the department, in an article about Miller on UPenn’s website. “Matt’s work in creative placemaking gives us even greater depth in this area. And his focus on race and intersectionality fits perfectly with our focus on equity.”

Vincent Reina, assistant professor of city and regional planning and Miller’s postdoctoral adviser, also said Miller’s varied methodology is a good fit for an interdisciplinary program like PennDesign.

In the spring, Miller will teach a course at UPenn called “Place, Taste and Urban Change.”

“It looks at really trying to interrogate the ways in which artistic excellence and artistic merit is being defined on built environments,” Miller said. “It’s particularly thinking about who has the power to define what is good design and good livable standards for people.”

Miller’s appointment to UPenn was made possible through the Penn Postdoctoral Fellowships for Academic Diversity, a competitive program to increase the diversity of the community of scholars devoted to academic research. His postdoctoral fellowship could last up to three years.

“I think it’s important to raise visibility to the fact that [African Americans and millennials] belong here, too,” Miller said. “There’s a lot of sea tide change of leadership in this country right now and I think it’s time for us to step up and to be seen.”