Commission Bio: Juan Camilo Osorio

Juan Camilo Osorio Botero is an Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. He was appointed to the City Planning Commission by the Brooklyn Borough President, Antonio Reynoso, to leverage 16 years of professional experience working as an architect and urban planner in collaboration with grassroots leaders across New York City. His work explores the tension between cities and the political economy of climate action and disaster recovery, where socio-economic and environmental inequality exacerbate each other at all stages of the planning process. This includes research, policy design, technical assistance and advocacy campaigns on community-based planning, environmental justice and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Before joining Pratt Institute as a full-time faculty member, he served as Research Affiliate and Co-Investigator at the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, Director of Research at the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, and Senior GIS Analyst and Planner at the Municipal Art Society Planning Center. In addition, he has been appointed to serve in many advisory capacities including the NYC Offshore Wind Advisory Council convened by the NYC Deputy Mayor for Economic & Workforce Development; the Land Use and Local Government Advisory Panel convened by the NYS Governor to inform the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA); and the Community Resiliency in Environmental Justice Industrial Waterfront Communities Work Group convened by the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (NEJAC). He holds a professional degree in architecture from the National University of Colombia, a masters in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, and he is a doctoral candidate in Urban Studies and Planning at MIT.