Chair 1988–91
David Lewis joined the Cornell faculty in 1973 and has been actively engaged in planning and policy research in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His work focuses on the role of governments in allocating resources, as needs outstrip administrative capacity. His required course, the Project Planning Workshop, has brought real world projects in diverse international contexts into the M.R.P. curriculum. Recent projects include a training program for government officials from Kazakhstan and establishing a planning program in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2009 he helped students from CRP, the Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA), and other programs come together to form the pro bono international development consulting firm, Cornell Global Solutions (CGS), which has worked with the Agriculture Research and Extension program at the Catholic University of the Sudan. CGS now works with Alice Pell, Cornell's vice provost of International Development, on a range of projects in Haiti, including a strategic plan for establishing a public / private foundation with Haitian leadership to coordinate development in the neighborhood of the GHESKIO Clinic with which Cornell has had a long-term relationship.
Lewis has served for extended periods as senior adviser to the Ministry of Finance and Planning in Kenya, regional development adviser to the Amman Urban Region Planning Group in Jordan, and small industry development adviser in Pakistan. He was director of Cornell’s Institute for African Development for 17 years, chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning, and the director of CIPA for the past nine years until his retirement in 2010. He specializes in regional planning, administrative systems, and decision making in developing countries.
Sources:
Department of City and Regional Planning, 2010. David Lewis. Adapted from faculty web profile.
Cornell Institute of Public Affairs, 2010. Core Faculty.
Lewis, D. 2010. Personal communication.
