University of Maryland professor to chair Urban Design and Planning: Qing Shen, associate dean for academic affairs and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, has been named Chair and Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning.

Shen's expertise includes urban economics, transportation planning, statistical methods and geographic information systems. His current interests include alternative patterns of urban growth and the ways in which information technologies are shaping cities, particularly their responses to environmental change.

Shen holds degrees from Zhejiang University in China, the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the latter where he earned his doctorate in city and regional planning. Before taking the job at Maryland, Shen served on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

News from the American Planning Association: University of Washington’s entry, Planning the Process: Updating Seattle’s Neighborhood Plans, has been chosen to receive the AICP Student Project Award for Applied Research. This award was presented during the APA/AICP Annual Business Meeting and Award Ceremony on Tuesday, April 28, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Assistant Professor Branden Born's spring 2008 first-year studio was co-taught by Rick Sepler, and TA Alon Bassok.

Congratulations to the following students : So-Ra Baek, Tyler Benson, Wendy Buffett, Jami Carter, Grace Cho, Jaclyn Gault, Seth Geiser, Brady Gillham, Max Hepp-Buchanan, Eddie Hill Jr., Katherine Killebrew, Jay Kipp, Lance Kollmann, Donald Kramer, Jennifer Lail, Alexander Lazar, Katherine Lichtenstein, Ruth Lindberg, Kara Martin, Rachel Miller, Erin Montgomery, Yosuke Oi,  Michael Pickford, Torence Powell, Kirk Rappe, Nicole Sanders, Sarah Squires, Orion Stewart, Victor Stover, Paul Symington, Tara Weaver, Scott Williamson, Joni Wilm, Jie Yang, and Melissa Young.