Peter Dunn
BS Sustainable Community Development Program Director & Academic Advisor; Accelerated Master's Program Coordinator
PhD, University of Washington
MSc, London School of Economics
BA, University of Virginia
Biography
Peter Dunn, PhD, is a lecturer in regional planning at UMass Amherst, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students interested in creating better communities. Prof. Dunn is the program director and academic advisor for the undergraduate Sustainable Community Development program. He also coordinates the 4+1 MRP and 4+2 MLA accelerated master's programs.
Professor Dunn’s intellectual focus is at the intersection of planning and digital technologies. Specifically, he asks how such technologies are not straightforward solutions to identified problems, but are messy sites where diverse actors work through conflicting visions of desirable public life. Work from his doctoral dissertation, which investigates the idealized promise and actual use of smartphone apps for urban mobility, has been published in Urban Planning and the Journal of Urban Technology.
Dunn also served as a researcher on an NSF-funded project investigating community resilience to natural hazards. Other interests include cartography, the politics of public space, and feminist political theory. Prior to entering academia, Dunn worked for Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the International City/County Management Association.
Office Hours
Fall 2025:
Tuesdays & Wednesdays 10 - 11am
Drop-ins welcome; no appointment needed.
Students are also welcome to make an appointment for another time at calendly.com/ptdunn
Courses
- SUSTCOMM 232: History of Sustainable Community Development
- SUSTCOMM / REGIONPL 574: City Planning
- REGIONPL 580: Sustainable Cities
- REGIONPL 625: Intro to GIS for Planning
- REGIONPL 651: Planning History & Theory