Former ULI Chairman New Dean at School of Design

Effective October 1, Marilyn Jordan Taylor will take over as dean of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

A partner in charge of the Urban Design and Planning Practice at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, Taylor is the first woman to serve as chairman of the firm, is internationally known for her involvement in the design of large-scale urban projects and civic initiatives.

During a 35-year career with Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Taylor has led many of the firm’s largest and most complex projects around the world. She was also the first architect and the first woman to serve as chairman of ULI, where she championed a renewed focus on cities, sustainable communities and infrastructure investment.

Projects Taylor led with Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s Urban Design and Planning Practice include Columbia University's Manhattanville Master Plan, the East River Waterfront Master Plan, the reclamation of Con Ed's East River sites for mixed-use development, the new research building at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and the new urban campus for John Jay College.

She also founded and leads Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s Airports and Transportation Practice, working on projects such as Terminal 4 at JFK airport, Continental Airlines at Newark and the expansion of Washington’s Dulles airport. Her international projects include SkyCity at Hong Kong International Airport and the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Taylor’s transit work has ranged from the award-winning Changi Airport Station in Singapore to the Transit-Friendly Land Use Handbook for New Jersey Transit.

In addition, Taylor has served as a member of The Partnership for New York City, president of the New York City chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and as a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a founding member of the New York New Visions Design and Planning Coalition, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Penn Institute for Urban Research.