Ricky Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age programme. He was Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics from 2006 to 2009, architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006 and is now advising the Olympic Park Legacy Company on the future development of London's Olympic site. He has curated numerous exhibitions including 'Global Cities' at Tate Modern, was Director of the 2006 Architecture Biennale in Venice and chairman of the Jury for the 2007 Mies van der Rohe Prize. He is architectural adviser to the cities of Genova and Parma, and a member of the Milan Expo 2015 masterplan team. He is a Council member of the Royal College of Art and sits on the Mayor of London's Promote London Council. He is the editor of 'The Endless City', published by Phaidon in 2008, and author of numerous publications on architecture and cities.

Philipp Rode is Executive Director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Programme. He is Ove Arup Fellow with the LSE Cities Programme and co-convenes the LSE Sociology Course on ‘City Making: The Politics of Urban Form’. As researcher and consultant he manages interdisciplinary projects comprising urban governance, transport, city planning and urban design. The focus of his current work is on cities and climate change. Rode organised Urban Age conferences in partnership with Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society in ten cities bringing together political leaders, city mayors, urban practitioners, private sector representatives and academic experts. He manages the Urban Age research efforts and recently published the reports ‘Cities and Social Equity’ (2009) and ‘Integrated City Making’ (2008). London-focused research includes ‘Density and Urban Neighbourhoods in London' (2005) and ‘A Framework for Housing in the London Thames Gateway' (2004). He has previously worked on several multidisciplinary research and consultancy projects in New York and Berlin and was awarded the Schinkel Urban Design Prize 2000. Rode obtained an MSc in City Design and Social Science at LSE and earlier a degree as Graduate Engineer in Transport Planning and Management at Technical University Berlin.

Since September 2003 Ute Weiland has been in charge of press and political contacts of Alfred Herrhausen Society, Deutsche Bank's socio-political think tank. In 1997 she co-founded the Erich Pommer Institute for Media Law and Media Management at the University of Potsdam and was its assistant managing director until 2003. Born in the former Eastern Germany she graduated from the Academy of Music in Weimar. After unification she became chief of staff to the Secretary of State for education in Saxony. Ute Weiland is a member of the German-Israeli Young Leaders Exchange of the Bertelsmann Foundation and young leader of the Atlantik Brücke.

Cristina Alaimo is a researcher involved in the “Next Urban Economy” project. She is also a PhD student within the Economic Geography research Cluster at LSE's Department of Geography with a research focused on innovation and creative economy within the urban scenario. In particular she is analysing how the urban system defines the design process as innovation process within the Fashion industry. Her background, in Visual Arts, Creative Economy and Cultural Policy, has allowed her to publish several articles and books on cultural management and policies, creative workers, cultural districts and local development strategies. As a professional in the cultural field she has organized various exhibitions, events, and cultural cooperation projects.

Jessica Barthel has been working as Project Manager at the Alfred Herrhausen Society since January 2005. Her tasks mainly deal with the Urban Age project, but she also has primary responsibility for all matters in connection with China. Previously, Jessica Barthel was a staff member in the corporate communications organization of Hubert Burda Media. After studying Literature, Media Sciences and Sinology, she gained her first professional experience as a journalist for the WAZ Group, a local radio station and Deutsche Presse Agentur, the German news agency. As part of a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship, she studied for one year at the Shanghai International Studies University.

Ömer Çavuşoğlu joined the Urban Age in 2008 as part of the research team for the Urban Age 2009 Istanbul Conference and has been involved with the research, organisation, outreach and communications of the conference. He continues to work on new research projects and collaborative work. He holds a BA (Hon) degree in Social and Political Sciences from Sabanci University, Istanbul (including an exchange semester in Aarhus, Denmark) and has completed the MSc City Design and Social Science program at the LSE in October 2008. He speaks Turkish, English, German and some Spanish.

Dr Andrea Colantonio is an urban geographer and economist who specialises in the investigation of the complex linkages between urban growth, sustainability and the geographies of development in both developing and developed countries. From 2006 to 2009, he was lead researcher and project manager for a major international study concerning social sustainability and urban regeneration in EU cities, including Cardiff, Rotterdam, Turin, Barcelona and Leipzig, which was carried out in cooperation with the European Investment Bank. His main research interests are in the areas of economic and social development, institutional governance and urban growth, with special emphasis on sustainability policy, planning and assessment methods.

Sarah Davis joined the Urban Age in June 2009. She manages and operates the finance activities of the programme. She acts as accounts co-ordinator for all accounting and daily financial procedures, as well as providing daily & management accounting support to management. She has previously worked as an accountant for National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the Automobile Association (AA), Thorn EMI and Foster Wheeler. She holds a BA(Hons) in Sociology from the University of Reading and is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant. She is married with three children.

Atakan Guven joined the LSE in November 2009. In addition to his expertise in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) he has extensive experience in research to develop policy initiatives in the areas of housing, land use, education and transportation. Prior to Urban Age, he worked in Chicago as research manager for an influential urban-policy think tank that helped craft and implement urban policy throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. He has worked as a GIS/Surveying consultant for the United Nations in the former Yugoslavia and on a number of archaeological sites in and around the Middle East. he holds an MSc in Surveying and Geomatics and a BA in Archaeology from University College London.

Miranda Iossifidis is an interactive/graphic designer and has worked with architects and urban designers in Paris, Rotterdam, Caracas and London. Her dissertation on gecekondu communities in Istanbul won the 2008 Design History Society BA Essay prize and she is currently studying Contemporary Urbanism at the LSE.

Mariane Jang has a background in sustainable urban development and the social sciences, having worked over three years in sustainability consulting and research at Arup. Her projects include project managing sustainable design guidance, reporting and assessment for the London 2012 Olympic Park and masterplans in the Middle East, Asia and Europe; and researching and developing sustainability strategies for a range of built environment projects and urban policies. She is a qualified CEEQUAL assessor, an Associate member of the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), and holds an MSc in Culture and Society from the LSE and a BA in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Adam Kaasa joined the Urban Age in 2006 and now manages all aspects of the communications and outreach events and publications for LSE Cities. He is an MPhil/PhD Candidate at the Cities Programme, LSE focussing on the circulations of ideas about architecture and urbanism, with a specific focus on urban forms and modernities, their effect on the built form of Mexico city, and emerging ideas of urban citizenship. He is also the London Coordinator for the NYLON seminars and conferences, a transatlantic intellectual working group between universities in and around London and New York, and teaches in the Sociology Department at the LSE. Previously, he worked on several international development projects ranging from capacity building for HIV/AIDS youth organisations in Guyana, working with a small community health centre in Mexico, and engaging with cross cultural education models in Sri Lanka. As a researcher he has completed several projects and publications on the city, on gender and sexuality, and on cultural and urban theory. He holds an MSc in Cites, Space and Society from the LSE, a BA (Hons) in Sociology from the University of Alberta, Canada and is an Associate of Trinity College London in Speech and Drama.

Jens Kandt is a research assistant at LSE Cities, where his work focuses on quantitative geographic analysis of mega-city regions around the world. He has studied at University of Kaiserslautern (Germany) and Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (India), and shall soon be obtaining his Masters degree (Dipl. Ing.) in spatial planning from University of Dortmund (Germany).

Antoine Paccoud joined the Urban Age in 2008 as a Researcher. As such, he is responsible for data collection and background research for the various projects undertaken by the Urban Age. His background is in Economics and Political Science - with a BA (Hons) from McGill, Montreal - as well as Development and Geography - with an MSc in Urbanisation and Development from the LSE. He is currently in the Urban and Regional Planning PhD program in the Department of Geography at the LSE. His research is focused on understanding the nature of Urban Events, i.e., spatial changes to the city fabric that fundamentally transform a city. This is to be based on a comparative study of Haussmann's comprehensive redevelopment of Paris in the late 19th century and the development of Manhattan, NYC in the second half of the 20th century.

Guido Robazza is an architect. His main focus is on urban planning and he has an interest in cities' transformation processes through a multidisciplinary approach (economic, social, environmental and political). A topic oriented to the execution of territorial planning projects, with particular interest on the role of mobility in the development of the city. He joined the Urban Age Programme in February 2009, supporting the research activity. He has previously worked for several architecture studios in Italy, Spain and South America and has pursued his own independent projects winning two international competitions of urban planning, writing several articles for architectural journals and taking part as a guest speaker in various conferences. He holds a specialization in housing from the Institute of Cooperation in Habitat Basic (Madrid – 2008). He studied at the Polytechnic School of Architecture of Madrid and at the University of Architecture of Venice, where he was awarded his degree in 2004.

Andrea Rota joined the Urban Age in 2009 and has been working on the Urban Age website, assisting with the development of new content, bringing legacy information in line with modern web standards and improving the web information workflow, in order to make research information more easily accessible to a wider public. He has been working for over a decade as a consultant on information infrastructures and content management systems entirely based on free software. He is currently an MPhil/PhD student in the department of Sociology at the LSE, focusing on the role of the Internet in everyday life for young university students in London. He holds a BA in Philosophy (Milano, Italy) and a MSc in Methods for social research (Firenze, Italy).

Katherine Wallis' administrative experience reaches across the public, private and charitable sectors, with a particular focus on culture and heritage. She has worked internationally, including in Italy and Albania, and most recently has been working at Zamyn, an agency for social development, and volunteering at the Museum of London Archaeology Service.