With over twenty-five years of proven experience authoring and implementing visionary architecture and urbanism, Vishaan Chakrabarti is the founder and creative director of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU). He is the author of A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America, published in 2013. He is currently on leave from his tenured faculty position at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, where he served as the William W. Wurster Dean of the College of Environmental Design. Prior to UC Berkeley, Vishaan was a professor at Columbia University for a decade.

After the tragic events of 9/11, he was appointed as Planning Director for Manhattan. In this position, he collaborated on the now-realised efforts to save the High Line and reincorporate the street grid at the World Trade Center site. He serves on the boards of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Planning Association, the Norman Foster Foundation and The World Around You. He also collaborates with the Rolex Institute, is an emeritus board member of the Friends of the High Line and is an ex-officio board member of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.