31 October - 3 November: At Social Science History Association conference in Toronto, Canada. Presenting two papers: “Visualizing Seneca Village: Building an Informed and Collaborative 3D Virtual Model of a Displaced 19th-Century Black Community” and “Updates from Mapping Historical New York.”

October: Version 2 of Mapping Historical New York launches. The new version is expanded to include all five of the city’s boroughs for 1850, 1880, 1910, and 1940, along with new visualization and customization options.

Fall teaching: Advanced GIS at Barnard College Urban Studies program.

July: New Paper! “Population Density in Nineteenth-Century American Urbanism,” coauthored with G. Baics and C. Arsen, is available online in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Update: The article is available in print in Volume 114, Issue 9.

Envisioning Seneca Village, an interactive 3D model of the 19th-Century community demolished to form Central Park, launches in June.

April: Presenting Mapping Historical New York as a colloquy participant at the Urban Affairs Association conference in New York.

Moderating the Architectural League’s “Current Work: Revisiting Branch Libraries” at the Cooper Union in New York on 13 March.

Spring teaching: Advanced Spatial Analysis and Digital Restructuring of Urban Space at Columbia GSAPP.

2023

At Social Science History Association conference in Washington DC in November to present “Mapping Irregular Settlements in Mid-19th-Century New York” with G Baics.

November: Presenting a paper at Regional Studies Association Winter Conference in London: “Broken Circuit: An Optimistic Framework for Applied Data-Driven Research on Urbanism.”

October: With G Baics and D Miller, presenting Mapping Historical New York (“The Digital Atlas as a Resource for Research”) at the biennial conference of the Urban History Association in Pittsburgh.

Spring teaching: M.S. in Urban Planning thesis and capstone at Columbia GSAPP.

Presenting “Logics of Business Placement in Mid-19th-Century New York” at Social Science History Association conference (online) in November, with G Baics.

September: Featured in City of Aspiration: 150 Ideas from New Yorkers for Building a More Equitable NYC from the Center for an Urban Future.

6 September: Learning Critical GIS: a Workbook is going live for students (and teachers) of context-driven, urban GIS.

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis and capstone at Columbia GSAPP.

August: "Remapping John Snow's Cholera Map, London, 1854" featured as the Key Visual of the 7th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences.

The Nomad Collection minting starts 22 August at earth.domains.

Spring: Mapping Historical New York receives Best Interactive/Digital map award and ties for Best in Show in the CaGIS 2021 Map Design competition.

Participating (remotely) at Social Science History Association conference. Presenting recent work with G Baics on measuring spatial heterogeneity in 19th-C US cities on 12 November, and roundtable discussion with the MHNY project team on 11 November.

Mapping Historical New York: A Digital Atlas will launch with an event on 27 October. Register here.

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems at Columbia GSAPP.

August: Mapping Historical New York project (with the Center for Spatial Research at GSAPP and the Columbia’s History Department) receives new grant from the Gardiner Foundation.

Participating in Emergency Urbanism webinar, hosted by CU Global Center Amman on 13 January.

Spring teaching: Advanced Spatial Analysis and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

Reflected on the evolution of Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project in Las Vegas in the New York Times on 28 November.

Speaking at GSAPP MSAAD’s Techno-Critical Assemblies series on 12 November. The talk: “Default Settings.”

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

Offering critical GIS tips in “GIS is not a Software: A Critical Primer and Tactical Glossary” for GSAPP students over zoom on 6 August.

210 Cities in San Diego receives Human Geography’s Cartography Spotlight, in the journal’s 2020 art contest.

Participating in a Day of Concern on climate change, organized by the students at Friends’ Seminary high school in NYC on 7 January.

On leave during Spring semester.

Honored to receive a 2019 Presidential Teaching Award from Columbia University at Commencement on 22 May.

Ways of Knowing Cities edited by Laura Kurgan and Dare Brawley (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019), including a chapter “Cartographies of Distance,” is launched along with several other new titles at Columbia GSAPP on 22 November.

In Chicago, 21-24 Nov for the Social Science History Association conference: Discussant for the “Emerging Methods: Historical Cartography” panel on Friday, 22 November. Also presented “Testing Wirth: Exploring Population Size and Density in the 19th-Century American City” with G Baics.

Participated in the Buell Center’s day-long event “The Green New Deal: A Public Assembly” at the Queens Museum in NYC on 17 November.

The exhibition 210 Cities in San Diego opens at the Lightroom Gallery, with a public lecture, at Carleton University on 4 November.

Digital Urbanisms: a day-long conference organized by Leah, at Columbia GSAPP on 11 October.

Delivering a public lecture “Tracing, Charting, Mapping, Drawing: Analytical Cartography as Historical GIS“ at New Directions and Connections in British Urban History at New York University on 13 September.

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems at Columbia GSAPP.

Delivering a faculty presentation at Columbia GSAPP’s 2019 Reunion festivities (and celebrating one of my alumni reunion classes) on 1 June.

Teaching “Mapping for the Urban Humanities: A Summer Institute,” 28 May - 6 June at Columbia’s Center for Spatial Research.

Presenting and discussing during a panel discussion on “Rethinking the [NYC] Grid” at the CUNY Graduate Center, with Gergely Baics and others on 6 May.

At American Association of Geographers 2019 conference in Washington, DC: Presenting during the panel session “Pushing the Boundaries of Regional Infrastructure: The Washington DC Region in Focus” and very excited to serve as discussant for the panel session “Urban Historical GIS” — both are on 6 April.

Delivering a position paper “Revisiting Analytical Cartography as Critical GIS” at Doing Critical GIS (a Univ of Maryland Baltimore County pre-AAG workshop) on 1 April in Baltimore.

Delivering “Cartographies of Distance and Difference” (public talk) at Columbia Global Center | Beijing on 17 March. (A blog post after-the-fact with a couple photos here.)

23 February: Another installment in the Gotham Center’s expanded series on the myths surrounding the NYC grid, with G Baics: “Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning.”

Spring teaching: Advanced Spatial Analysis, Urban Datascapes, and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

15 December: Short piece on the Gotham Center for New York City History’s blog, in their series debunking myths about the NYC street grid: “Myth 9: System of Block and Lot Divisions” with G Baics.

Delivering the keynote address at Hofstra University’s celebration of Geography Awareness Week on 15 November. The talk: “Digital Cartographies of Everyday Life.”

Presenting “Cartographies of Access, Opportunity, and Difference” on 25 October at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning 58th Annual Conference in Buffalo, NY.

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

June: New essay in The Avery Review: "Not Yet #AfterRikers: Looking for #JusticeInDesign," a review of the Van Alen Institute's Justice In Design report.

Speaking at the Athena conference “The Strip Urbanism & Beyond: Las Vegas from the Inside Out” on 11 June at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, co-sponsored by the Center for the Future of Places and the degree program in Urbanism Studies.

24 May: New on ARPA Journal, Issue 5 Conflicts of Interest: "Research Ransoms: On Expelling Undue Influence" LM in conversation with Samantha Parsons from UnKoch My Campus.

Speaking at Unlayerings: A Critical Conversation on Historical Geography on 17 May (keynote session) and the 18th (roundtable) of May at Dartmouth College in Hanover, VT. The talk: "Cartographic Distance and the Urban Humanities."

Presenting "Distanced: Remapping Access" at the American Association of Geographers conference in New Orleans, 10-14 April as part of a special session on Mapping Urban In/Justice.

Participating in the Impact Data Lab workshop 11-14 March in Amman, organized by Visualizing Impact and Studio-X Amman, where I'll serve as a mentor and advisor to the design teams.

Giving a public talk "Difference and Distance" at Turbo on 12 March in Amman, Jordan, organized by Studio-X Amman.

Participating in VizTech: Converging Pedagogies and Practices at GSAPP on 16 February.

Speaking at the Ways of Knowing Cities symposium (talk: "Cartographies of Distance") hosted by the Center for Spatial Research at Columbia in New York on 9 February.

Spring teaching: Advanced Spatial Analysis, Digital Restructuring of Urban Space, and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

13 November: "The Grid as Algorithm for Land Use: a Reappraisal of the 1811 Manhattan Grid" is now available online in Planning Perspectives.

Presenting two papers at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association conference in Montreal, both on 1 November. One on methodologies of H-GIS, the other on residential (in)stability in industrializing Copenhagen.

Presenting on urban planning's engagement with mass imprisonment at the annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in Denver, CO on 14 October.

Speaking in GSAPP's Lectures in Planning Series. The talk: "Critical Distance: Notes on GIS from the Ground" is 12 September.

Fall teaching: Geographic Information Systems and M.S. in Urban Planning Thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

Speaking on "Maps & Mayhem" at the Lady Science Forum hosted by BioDigital at the New York Public Library Grand Central Branch Library on 30 August. The event is "Planning for Sharing: The Science of Urban Design."

Speaking at the University of Copenhagen on "Density & Connectivity: Land Use in Midnineteenth-Century New York" with G Baics on 19 June.

Keynote speaker with Gergely Baics at "Humanizing Data: Data, Humanities, and the City" a day-long symposium organized by the NYU Urban Democracy Lab on 8 April.

Speaking and moderating at "Big Data, Urban Data" organized by the APA Metro student representatives, at GSAPP 31 March.

Speaking at GeoNYC's "No One Ever Said Mapping Time Easy" on 13 Feb.

"Density & Connectivity: Land Use in Midnineteenth-Century New York" on view at Barnard College's McCagg Gallery 20 February - 3 March.

Spring teaching: Introduction to GIS and M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

Speaking at the SVA Design Research, Writing, and Criticism lecture series on 6 December in NYC.

Cher finissage event in Copenhagen on 11 November, to close out the year-long project for the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2016: After Belonging. Join us that afternoon at the Danish Architecture Center.

Speaking on 29 October at the Columbia Women's Leadership Conference on intersectionality and the production of gendered space in cities.

"Zoning Before Zoning: Land Use & Density in Mid-19th-Century New York" with G Baics (article in AAAG) reported in The Atlantic's CityLab by Richard Florida.

Presenting follow-up research on the NYC street grid with G Baics at the Urban History Association 2016 conference in Chicago, 13-16 October.

Presenting at the Architectural League of New York's Annual Student Program on 24 September. A full day of diverse practices. More info and registration here. 

Presentation and Panel Discussion at the AIA Center for Architecture on 19 September. The topic: "Designing for People Using Evidence." More info and RSVP here.

The Oslo Architecture Triennale 2016: After Belonging opened on 8 September and will remain on view until 27 November. If you're in Norway, check out the Cher photo booth! The prototype-as-provocation, Cher officially launched at the OAT opening. Check it out at cher.city (desktop or mobile browser).

Fall teaching: M.S. in Urban Planning thesis at Columbia GSAPP.

Presenting Cher at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design on 22 June in Copenhagen, Denmark.

At the SculptureCenter on 15 June. " In/On Construction: Leslie Hewitt and Leah Meisterlin in Conversation" to discuss Leslie's Collective Stance at the Center.

Speaking at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Met Breuer on 8 June in NYC as part of "In Our Time: The Sharing Movement." 

Teaching "Mapping for the Urban Humanities: A Summer Bootcamp," a summer intensive course on digital mapping for faculty, with the Center for Spatial Research at Columbia.

"Zoning Before Zoning: Land Use & Density in Midnineteenth-Century New York" (with G Baics) now available online in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Very proud and excited to join the Metropolitan New York Library Council Board of Trustees.

Leah will join the full-time faculty at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in the fall, teaching within the urban planning program.

Panel discussion to launch The Architecture Lobby's Asymmetric Labors: The Economy of Architecture in Theory & Practice at the Venice Biennale vernissage: 3PM on Friday, 27 May at the New Zealand Exhibition.

Presenting pedagogical lessons from Datascapes & the Informal City at Barnard's "Teaching through Technology: Faculty Reflections" on Thursday, 5 May.

Teaching the Rikers Studio in Architecture and Urban Design, with the Rikers Education Program at Columbia University's Center for Justice—a four-week course for Columbia students and 16-to-17-year-olds at Rikers Island.

Presenting "Alternative and Pluralistic Mappings of the City" at Reading the City 2 at the London School of Economics on 18 March.

Pecha Kucha presentation on urban planning practice at Columbia University GSAPP on 18 February.

"Cher" selected as one of five "In Residence" Intervention Strategies for the 2016 Oslo Architectural Triennale.