Richard Burdett CBE is professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age project. His interests and activities focus on the interactions between the physical and social worlds of cities. Professor Burdett was the architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006 and Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics. He is a member of Council of the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, was a commissioner on the UK Government's Airports Commission., a member of the US Housing and Urban Development Hurricane Sandy Regional Planning and Design Competition and the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities initiative. He leads LSE Cities, a global centre of research and teaching at the London School of Economics and acts as a consultant to national and city governments, private developers and philanthropic agencies around the world. He founded and directs the Urban Age programme, an interdisciplinary investigation of global cities that brings together national and city leaders, academics, designers and civic actors. He was director of the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale and curator of the Global Cities exhibition at Tate Modern in London. He is also co-editor of "The Endless City" (2007), "Living in the Endless City" (2011) and "Transforming Urban Economies" (2013).
Burdett was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to urban planning and design in the 2017 New Year Honours.