Justin Stern

Justin D Stern is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the MacMillan Center. He is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Yale-NUS College with a joint appointment in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore.

His current research project, “Global Outsourcing, Local Transformations: Transnational Business and Urban Restructuring in the Philippines” looks at the socio-spatial ​implications of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines. A key finding of the research is that the expansion of the BPO industry is driving a new type of urban agglomeration in the Philippines, one in which issues of time – and the specific time zone(s) served – shape the organization of physical space, and influence urban design and planning practices.

Stern holds a PhD in Urban Planning and a Master’s Degree of Urban Planning from Harvard University, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Design Studies and Political Economy from Sarah Lawrence College. In 2020, he was the Harold A. Pollman Postdoctoral Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Development at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Asst Prof Stern practiced as an urban planner in the affordable housing sector in the South Bronx, New York City.