AMES, Iowa — Joy Sen, a leader in heritage studies and documentation in India, will speak about his “Experiences with Community and Regional Planning Projects in Asia, and India in Particular” in a lecture next month at Iowa State University.

Hosted by the ISU Department of Community and Regional Planning, Sen’s free talk will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 10, in room 130 College of Design.

Sen is a professor and former head of the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur), one of India’s most prestigious public academic institutions. He previously headed the IIT Kharagpur Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure and Design and currently chairs the institute’s Center for Excellence in Indian Knowledge Systems and its Nehru Museum of Science and Technology.

Sen has authored seven books and several articles on Indian heritage and iconographic documentation and a textbook on sustainable planning in India. And he has been involved in multiple international projects, many in collaboration with local and international governments, United Nations organizations and universities in the United States and United Kingdom.

In his Iowa State lecture, Sen will share his direct field experiences in different capacities with five of these projects, including:

  • a master plan for the Falta Export Processing Zone, India’s first free-trade zone
  • the Calcutta Environmental Management and Action Plan or CEMSAP, India’s first metropolitan environmental planning project
  • integrated planning for the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal
  • a three-phase creative economic regeneration planning project for the Varanasi historic district
  • mapping the creative economy around the Durga Puja annual Hindu festival, which is included on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list

Sen received the 2021 IITKGP Foundation G S Sanyal Award for Faculty Excellence, an annual award recognizing faculty who support IIT Kharagpur students through activities, technology, innovation and/or entrepreneurship. He holds a bachelor of architecture and a doctorate from IIT Kharagpur. He received a master of community and regional planning from Iowa State.

Contacts

Monica Haddad, Community and Regional Planning, haddad@iastate.edu
Heather Sauer, College of Design Strategic Communications, hsauer@iastate.edu

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