Juan Camilo Osorio

From the outset, my teaching and research emphasize the conflict between cities and natural disasters, and the political, socio-economic, and ecological changes that they entail. I am interested in theories exploring the role of ideologies, power and institutions on the social, economic and environmental transformations required to build equity and justice. My work at MIT combines the interests above with teaching assistantships in GIS & spatial analysis in the Masters in City Planning, and research assistance to Professor Phillip Thompson. This work takes place as part of a larger collaboration between MIT, CoLab and various partners in Colombia that include the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, and the International Office for Migration, among others.

As an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, I also help introduce graduate students to urban planning research in New York. While working as Director of Research for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA), I designed policy and research to support advocacy strategies for all campaigns in NYC-EJA's agenda. I also worked as Senior Planner & GIS Analyst at The Municipal Art Society Planning Center, where I used spatial information to support research and advocacy on community-based planning, urban design and historic preservation. Before working in New York, I worked with the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, a non-profit agency based in Holyoke, Massachusetts -- using GIS to study systematic and procedural impediments to fair housing in the central and western regions of the state.

I am a professional architect from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, with a Masters in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst -- and I am completing a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.