Maurice Cox
Planning Director, City of Detroit
Maurice Cox is the planning director for the city of Detroit. He most recently served as associate dean for community engagement at Tulane University’s School of Architecture and director of the Tulane City Center, a university-affiliated practice operating at the intersection of design, urban research and civic engagement throughout New Orleans.
Cox previously taught at Syracuse University, the University of Virginia and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He also served as design director of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from 2007-2010, where he led the NEA’s Your Town Rural Institute, the Governors’ Institute on Community Design, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, and oversaw grants to the design community across the United States.
He was named one of “20 Masters of Design” in 2004 by Fast Company magazine for his experience merging architecture, politics and design education. In 2013, Cox was named one of the “Most Admired Design Educators in America” in the annual ranking of Design Intelligence.