Professional Biography
Mark Alan Hughes is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design and founding faculty director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He is also a faculty fellow of the Penn Institute for Urban Research, a senior fellow of the Wharton School’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, and a distinguished scholar in residence at Penn’s Fox Leadership Program.
Dr. Hughes joined the standing faculty of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in 1986 at the age of 25 and joined the Penn faculty in 1999. He has published in the leading journals of economic geography, urban economics, political science, policy analysis, and won the National Planning Award for his research in city and regional planning.
He was chief policy adviser to Mayor Michael A. Nutter and the founding director of sustainability for the City of Philadelphia, where he led the creation of the Greenworks Plan. He has designed and fielded national policy research projects in a variety of areas including the Bridges to Work program in transportation, the Transitional Work Corporation in job training and placement, the Campaign for Working Families in EITC participation, and the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub in regional economic development. This work has been funded by H.U.D., H.H.S., D.O.E., Ford, Rockefeller, Pew, Casey, William Penn, and others. Dr. Hughes earned a Ph.D. in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from Swarthmore College.
