New Leadership and Faculty Join AAP

Milton S. F. Curry

Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement and Professor, Architecture

Milton S. F. Curry produces creative work and scholarship on the role of architecture in shaping social consciousness and the intersectional role of race, class, and urban geography embedded in modern and contemporary aesthetic practices in the Americas. His current work includes three book manuscripts on architecture race theory, diversity in the practice and profession of architecture, and the cultural significance and critical histories of the boutique hotel. At Cornell, Curry will launch and direct the Black Cities Americas Lab, which will examine the possibilities of environmental justice and reparations movements on the urban design and redevelopment of America's inner cities. Additionally, in his role as Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement, he will lead a range of cross-college and cross-institutional initiatives that advance AAP's overall mission. 

Previously, Curry served as Dean at the University of Southern California School of Architecture from 2017–22 and as Associate Dean / Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning from 2010–17. He was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Architecture at Cornell from 1995–2010 and Director of the Cornell University Council for the Arts from 2002–08. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1988 and a Master of Architecture II post-professional degree with distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1992.

Curry officially joined the Department of Architecture on July 1.

Sara Eddleman

Associate Dean for Administration

As the college's chief administrative and financial officer, Sara Eddleman will oversee non-academic functions such as personnel, information technologies, facilities, and finance; collaborate broadly with faculty and staff; participate in strategic planning and long-term resource stewardship; and facilitate progress on the Dean's initiatives.

A leader in higher education for more than a decade, Eddleman has supported robust research operations, shepherded thoughtful organizational change, and fostered inclusive environments. She began her career as an academic administrator in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, moving to Cornell University in 2013. At Cornell, Eddleman has been the senior administrator in three departments (Neurobiology and Behavior, Literatures in English, and most recently the Lab of Atomic and Solid State Physics) across three divisions (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, Research Division). She has also served extensively on cross-college committees designed to improve practices and develop sharable resources. The through line across her wide-ranging experience is her commitment to building and sustaining collaborative relationships with staff, faculty, and students alike.

Eddleman holds a B.A. (triple major: English, German, Philosophy) from Case Western Reserve University, an M.A. (English Literature and Critical Theory) from the University at Buffalo, an M.B.A. from the University of Oklahoma, and an M.S. (Communication) from Cornell University.

Eddleman officially joined AAP on July 16.

Stuart S. Rosenthal

Chair and Professor, Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate jointly managed with the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Stuart S. Rosenthal comes to Cornell from Syracuse University, where he was the Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of Economics and a senior research associate in the university's Center for Policy Research. 

Rosenthal's work covers many aspects of the economics of cities, including housing and mortgage markets, local tax policy, spatial patterns of productivity, and land use and costs. His knowledge and expertise in these areas, as well as his many editorial roles with a number of leading academic journals, advance critical discourse in the real estate industry and discipline from multiple perspectives, making him particularly well-suited to lead and shape real estate education at Cornell.

Since 2007, Rosenthal has served as co-managing editor of the Journal of Urban Economics. He is a fellow of the Homer Hoyt School of Advanced Studies in Real Estate and Urban Economics and the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). Rosenthal has served on the council for the Urban Economics Association, the Board of Directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA), and as an executive officer of AREUEA from 2013–15. From 2017–21, he served as Chair of the Syracuse University Department of Economics. In 2013, Rosenthal received the RSAI Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College.

Rosenthal officially joins the Department of Real Estate on August 1.

Ding Fei

Assistant Professor, City and Regional Planning

As a development and economic geographer, Ding Fei's areas of expertise are in the political economy of international development, global production networks, infrastructure-led industrialization, capital-labor relations, South-South migration, and China-Africa relations. Cutting across the fields of critical development studies, economic geography, and labor studies, her empirical research combines a political economy approach to examining the norms, values, and developmental impacts of Chinese investment in Africa with an ethnographic view into everyday encounters among states, firms, and workers. Fei received her Ph.D. from the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society, with a doctoral minor in Geographical Information Sciences at the University of Minnesota. From 2020–21, she was an early career fellow in China Studies at the American Council of Learned Societies.

Fei officially joined the Department of City and Regional Planning on July 1.