Contact details

Location

John W. Olver Design Building

551 N Pleasant Street
Amherst, MA 01003
United States

Office 228

About

Peter Dunn is a lecturer in regional planning in LARP, where he teaches students in the Sustainable Community Development major, the Master in Regional Planning program, and many others interested in creating better communities. He has also taught visual communication, design studios, and a variety of classes on cities and planning at the University of Washington, Seattle.

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. He 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, Professor Dunn worked for Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the International City/County Management Association.

Professor Dunn is the acting Program Director for the B.S. in Sustainable Community Development.

Fall 2022 office hours:
Monday, 1:30 - 2:30pm
Thursday: 10 - 11am
(No appointment needed.)

Students can also make an appointment at https://umass.campus.eab.com/pal/yBAeZcwLd8

Courses

  • City Planning (SUSTCOMM / REGIONPL 574)
  • Planning History & Theory (REGIONPL 651)