Carnegie Mellon University
April 10, 2012

Press Release: Carnegie Mellon University Tapped To Join New Global Foundation for Improving Urban Life

CMU Faculty To Share Innovative Ideas About Building More Sustainable Communities

Contacts: Chriss Swaney / 412-268-5776 / swaney@andrew.cmu.edu
Pam Wigley / 412-268-1047 / pwigley@andrew.cmu.edu

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University has joined the New Cities Foundation (NCF), a prestigious new global platform designed to improve the urban environment, from better lighting to safer roads and improved infrastructure.

"This a wonderful new partnership as the university works to help find solutions to continued infrastructure deterioration by using data-driven, intelligent automatic decision support tools," said James H. Garrett, Jr., head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and faculty co-director of the Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Incubator.

The NCF partnership involves four of Carnegie Mellon's research institutes, including the Remaking Cities Institute (RCI), the Traffic21 initiative, the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems and the Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Incubator.

Don Carter, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at CMU's School of Architecture, said work on research issues pertaining to urban development continues to attract support from government agencies, foundations and corporate partners, which are also at the core of the NCF membership community. "This new partnership is based on a mutual understanding and common goal for developing innovative, sustainable urbanism," said Carter, who chairs CMU's Master of Urban Design Program.

Both Carter and Garrett will attend an NCF New Cities Summit, May 14-16, in Paris to discuss a cadre of urban issues from energy and finance to mobility.

"CMU clearly understand the importance of leveraging resources among multiple partners for the greater good," said Mathieu Lefevre, executive director of the New Cities Foundation, a Swiss non-profit based in Geneva with offices in Paris, New York and Rio de Janeiro. The foundation includes corporate and academic members.  For more information about the foundation, see www.newcitiesfoundation.org.

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