Taubman College Taubman College welcomes new faculty members for the 2023–2024 academic year. These new colleagues join established faculty in offering students a breadth of opportunities for learning and professional development.
Luke Bonner, Intermittent Lecturer of Urban and Regional Planning
Bonner is CEO of the Bonner Advisory Group and has 20 years of economic development experience in the public and private sector. Throughout that time, he has supported over 250 corporate projects in which the companies have committed to nearly 10,000 jobs and over $3 billion in new investment in Michigan communities.
Bill Bubniak, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban And Regional Planning and Director Of Real Estate Initiatives
Bubniak joined NAI/Farbman in January 1988 and is currently an Executive Vice President. He is a licensed real estate broker in Michigan and Florida. He specializes in the investment in and sale of turnaround properties and structuring deals for user/buyers to purchase for their businesses. Before joining NAI/Farbman, he worked as an attorney specializing in tax and real estate law.
Maggie Cochrane, Intermittent Lecturer of Architecture
Cochrane is an architectural designer actively pursuing licensure. Her career has taken her from historic preservation carpentry to critical home repair for at-risk communities to architecture school to design work for a Tribally-owned firm in Michigan. Her work in both construction and design has given her methods for effective communication between both these parts of the building process.
Gabriel Cuéllar, Assistant Professor of Architecture
Cuéllar is an architect, urban designer, and educator. With Athar Mufreh, he co-directs Cadaster, a spatial practice that develops design frameworks to support organizations driving institutional change. He has contributed to projects exhibited at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the House of World Cultures, The New School Parsons School of Design, and the University of Michigan.
Collin Garnett, Intermittent Lecturer of Architecture
Garnett is an M.Arch ‘23 Taubman College alum and recipient of the 2023 George G. Booth Traveling Fellowship for his project titled “In-Svalbard: Futurist Archives at Work Above the Arctic Circle.”
Lauren Hood, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban and Regional Planning
Hood is the Founder and Chief Visionary of the Institute for AfroUrbanism (IAU), a think tank and action lab in search of what it means to be Black and thrive. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) awarded her the Charles Blessing Award for thought leadership in planning and civic issues. She serves as the Chairwoman of the City of Detroit’s Planning Commission, Co-Chair of the City’s Reparations Task Force, and Trustee for the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Xiaofan Liang, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
Liang’s research interests are to support social life in cities and participatory/collaborative processes in planning through urban analytics. Her approaches are largely inspired by the field of network science, complex systems, and critical & participatory methods in GIS and planning, and therefore, ground her research in the pursuit of authentic human connections and social inclusion in cities.
Kuukuwa Manful, Assistant Professor of Architecture
Manful is a trained architect and researcher from Ghana who creates, studies, and documents the history, theory, and politics of architecture in Africa. Her doctoral research at the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS, University of London, examined nation-building, social class, and modernity in Ghana through a study of the sociopolitical and physical architectures of secondary schools.
Sarah Mills, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban and Regional Planning
Mills conducts research at the intersection of energy policy and land use planning–especially in rural communities. Her current work focuses on how renewable energy development impacts rural communities (positively and negatively), the disparate reactions of rural landowners to wind and solar projects, and how state and local policies facilitate or hinder renewable energy deployment.
Athar Mufreh, LEO III Lecturer of Architecture
Mufreh (she/her) is a designer and educator. She worked as a designer and researcher at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation. She has been a lecturer at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the University of Minnesota School of Architecture. She is currently working on multi-generational housing and landscape ecology.
Madhavi Reddy, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban and Regional Planning
Reddy is a Detroit-based community builder who works at the intersection of justice and place. Her work centers around leveling the playing field of public participation and creating opportunities for people across sectors to develop shared strategies for change. Her community-building practice includes multi-sectoral collaboration, creating strong civic infrastructure, and developing cross-cultural processes and initiatives.
Jonathan Schwartz, Intermittent Lecturer of Urban Technology
Schwartz is a full-stack web developer with a passion for problem-solving and building meaningful products. He values creativity, design, efficient and maintainable code, and exciting challenges.
Violet Whitney, Intermittent Lecturer of Urban Technology
Whitney’s research explores human computer interaction beyond the screen, leveraging our bodily, social, and physical realities. She co-leads a group called Architechies a meetup network for urban tech. She has been a Director of Product and an Associate Director of Design at Sidewalk Labs, the Google initiative focused on building future cities. There she applied her background in building technologies on Delve, an AI product for neighborhood development.
Lauren Williams, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Digital Studies
Williams is a Detroit-based designer, researcher, writer, and educator working with visual and interactive media to understand, critique, and reimagine how social and economic systems distribute and exercise power. Their recent work titled Making Room for Abolition included an experiential installation of a living room from a Detroit (and world) without police and prisons.
Matthew Wizinsky, Associate Professor of Practice in Urban Technology
Wizinsky is an internationally recognized designer, educator, researcher, and author of contemporary design practices. He has over 20 years of professional design experience, including design and consulting for digital start-ups, international commercial agencies, and in-house studios for major cultural institutions. His book, Design After Capitalism, was published by the MIT Press in 2022.
