Weitzman School names urban designer Zhongjie Lin as Benjamin Z. Lin Presidential Professor

Zhongjie Lin, an architect and urban designer in the Weitzman School of Design, has been named the Benjamin Z. Lin Presidential Professor.

Lin is in charge of the urban design concentration in the school's Department of City & Regional Planning. He obtained his PhD in city and regional planning at the School of Design after completing his Bachelor of Architecture and a master's degree in architecture at Tongji University in Shanghai, China. 

After earning his PhD, Lin taught architecture and urbanism at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte before returning to Penn in 2019. 

Having studied China’s new town movement as an expression of global image-making and the development of mega-cities in Latin America, Lin uses urban design research as a tool to utilize the vast capacities of new technologies to benefit city residents.

In line with the School of Design’s efforts to create more sustainability-based learning opportunities in recent years, Lin leads a research lab focused on sustainable urbanism, urban mobility, city form, public space, and nature-based infrastructure called the Future Cities Initiative. Lin is also the co-founder of Futurepolis, an international design firm with numerous prize-winning projects in architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture. 

Lin’s appointment is possible due to a gift from Benjamin Lin, 2005 Wharton graduate, venture capital investor, and member of the Weitzman School Board of Advisors. Born in Fujian, Benjamin grew up in New Jersey after his parents emigrated to the United States. He was the first person in his family to attend college, graduating from Wharton and taking up a position on Wall Street afterwards. Benjamin has since invested in a number of tech and real estate companies in addition to running a real estate investment platform Coral. 

Benjamin's gift aims to give the school an opportunity to educate young designers on incorporating knowledge of the fields ranging from finance and technology to material sciences into their work. 

“It’s actually a cross-disciplinary endeavor, where you put everything together — technology, finance and design,” Benjamin said in the School of Design announcement.

Zhongjie said that the appointment adds a degree of “prestige” to his research agenda, which he hopes will encourage increased collaboration on the study of the future of cities.