Brian Joe Lobley Berry

Brian J. L. Berry is the Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor and Dean of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas. The appointment of Regental Professors is subject to the approval of the University of Texas System’s Board of Regents. In 1958 he became Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, rising to Professor in 1965. When he left Chicago for Harvard University in 1976 he was the Irving B. Harris Professor of Urban Geography, Chairman of the Department of Geography and Director of the Center for Urban Studies. At Harvard he became the Frank Backus Williams Professor of City and Regional Planning, Chairman of the Ph.D. Program in Urban Planning, Director of the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis, Professor in the Department of Sociology and Faculty Fellow of the Harvard Institute for International Development. Harvard awarded him an honorary degree in 1976. He left Harvard in 1981 to become Dean of the (now) Heinz School of Public Policy and Management and University Professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University, positions that he held until moving to The University of Texas at Dallas in 1986, becoming Founders Professor and Professor of Political Economy in the School of Social Sciences. In the 1960s his urban and regional research sparked geography's quantitative revolution and made him the most-cited geographer for more than 25 years. Subsequently, his inquiries extended from urban ecology to geographic information systems, from growth center theory to the concept of counterurbanization, and, most recently, have focussed on long-wave macroeconomic/historical processes. He has attempted to bridge theory and practice via involvement in urban and regional development activities in both advanced and developing countries.