Kevin Nelson is a Lecturer for URSP 250: The Sustainable City: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Mr. Nelson brings over 25 years of direct and practical experience working with local governments, cities, and regional councils of government to identify urban issues and develop relevant solutions that produce expected results and advance opportunities for sustainable living and prosperity. This includes positions with urban design nonprofits, consulting firms working to bring planning solutions to cities and counties, as well as federal government career in US Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Growth Office as well as leading urban programming at the US Agency for International Development.
Currently, Mr. Nelson is the Urban Governance Lead for the Governance Office within the Bureau of Development, Democracy and Innovation at USAID. In this role, he chairs the Urban Expert Working Group, composed of Agency technical experts who focus on urban work. He also coordinates donor engagement and leads efforts to support the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Currently, Mr. Nelson is coordinating USAID’s strategic thinking about the role cities and urban areas have in driving national economies, promoting democracy and governance and addressing climate change, anti-corruption, violence prevention and supporting local solutions to municipal service delivery.
Furthermore, Mr. Nelson focuses on donor engagement and global initiatives to frame and address urban sustainability and development issues. Recently, he has contributed to the G20 process on sustainable localization, the recent IPCC report on climate change, city-focused deliverables for the Summit for Democracy, as well as advancing solutions to combat violence while increasing opportunities for women's safety and empowerment in urban settings.
In his career, he has written zoning codes, development regulations, comprehensive plans, contributed to many American Planning Association PAS Reports, authored multiple smart growth code tools as well as a series of urban-focused reports and technical guides covering urban resilience, domestic resource mobilization, and climate finance and budgeting.
Mr. Nelson holds a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois (1995) and a bachelor’s degree in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame (1993). He has taught at The Catholic University of America and at the University of Maryland Baltimore County covering topics of urban sustainability, natural resource management and government budget and public administration.