Patrice Derrington appointed Director of the Real Estate Development Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

As of September 2015, Dr. Patrice Derrington has been appointed the Holliday Associate Professor of Real Estate Development and has assumed the directorship of the Master of Science in Real Estate Development Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Dr. Derrington is an accomplished real estate professional and educator whose extensive experience bridges finance, investment, design, and development. As Program Director, Professor Derrington will formulate the theoretical underpinnings of educating professionals for the property sector in a world of escalating urban development, and will establish thought leadership in the real estate industry through an interdisciplinary research agenda. She also serves as the Director of the Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE), a research institute that addresses the current challenges of the built environment including the impact of technology on cities, social inequity in property markets, climate change, affordable housing, and the globalization of real estate investment and capital flows.

“Patrice’s strong development experience, financial expertise and deep commitment to design excellence across scales and contexts is reinforced by her outstanding record with students, industry leaders and academic colleagues, making her uniquely qualified as director of our Master of Real Estate Development program. Patrice is dedicated to fostering new forms of scholarship and practice in a field that is becoming increasingly critical to the future of architecture, cities and the environment. I look forward to supporting her as she builds on the program’s outstanding qualities to make it both an indispensable contributor to the school’s vitality and academic ecology, and a leader in shaping the future of the field of Real Estate Development,” said Dean Amale Andraos.

Derrington succeeds Vishaan Chakrabarti, under whose successful tenure the Masters of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) gained visibility and prestige. Chakrabarti brought an urban consciousness to the program and built a curriculum dedicated to smart growth policies locally, nationally, and globally. Chakrabarti is Associate Professor of Practice at GSAPP, and architectural design partner at SHoP Architects in New York. His recent book, A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, argues that a more urban United States would result in a more prosperous, sustainable, joyous, and socially mobile nation.

“I am most honored to take the reins of directorship from Vishaan Chakrabarti, who so notably refined Columbia’s MSRED program to attain its highly acclaimed educational status. This, together with the school’s fine record of rigorous intellectual investigation and contribution to progressing society’s relationship with the built environment, commits me to the objective of advancing the program to global premiership and attaining recognition of its graduates as the very best of real estate professionals,” said Professor Derrington.

From 2012 until 2015, Patrice Derrington served as a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, where she taught Real Estate Finance and was the Head of the Global Real Estate Concentration. In this capacity she taught cross-border real estate courses, including Global Markets & Investment, Development and Construction, and the Global Real Estate Capstone, formulating innovative approaches to the teaching of international real estate. In addition, she oversaw a robust visiting speaker series, planned and lead study trips, and maintained the program’s high profile contact with the industry both in New York and internationally, helping to create crucial job placement for graduates. In 2015, Patrice received the prestigious Award for Teaching Excellence, and her exemplary track record with students confirms that she is a dedicated and well-loved educator.

Prior to her academic role at NYU, Dr. Derrington worked for over 15 years in New York’s dynamic real estate finance and investment markets. Her investment banking activities at Chemical Bank/JPMorgan included the restructuring of major development projects such as Canary Wharf in London, the Trump portfolio, and other significant national developers. Proceeding onto private equity investment in distressed real estate for David Rockefeller Sr. and partners, and the founding and management of the top-decile Victory REIT Fund, she was recognized as a key industry professional by her colleagues and the media, appearing regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC and profiled in Barrons and the Financial Times. Patrice also served as a turn-around CEO for various private real estate companies involved in student housing, large urban tract development, and recreational precincts; and, following the tragedy of 9/11, she served in the NYS Governor’s Lower Manhattan Development Corporation where she formulated economic revitalization programs including the creation of the urban transit hub at the World Trade Center site. Committed to the highest principles of ethics and corporate governance, she also served as an Independent Board Director for Amerivest Properties, a US suburban office REIT, and for Charter Hall Group, an Australian REIT.

Professor Derrington holds a Ph.D in architecture and civil engineering from UC Berkeley, a Harvard MBA, and a B.Arch (Hons) from the University of Queensland, Australia.