The University of New Mexico (UNM)  has selected Robert Alexander González as the new Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. 

González comes to New Mexico from Texas Tech University (TTU), where he currently serves as the Director of the Architecture Program and leads the TTU El Paso Regional Site. While at TTU, González has led a variety of school initiatives, including building a new graduate degrees in Historic Preservation Studies and Retail, Hotel, and Institutional Management. González also worked for nine years to "engage TTU in the city’s downtown renaissance, and he hopes to encourage the same kind of partnerships between the SA+P and Albuquerque and Santa Fe, where he currently resides," according to the UNM website. 

In a UNM announcement, González writes, “I am excited about joining the UNM School of Architecture and Planning family. I found the School to be unlike any other program with its diverse faculty and staff dedicated to serving a culturally rich region, especially with two standout design research centers, DPAC, the second oldest community design center in the country, and the Indigenous Design and Planning Institute."  

He adds, “This is a model for other institutions that want to integrate multiple disciplines that are strongly rooted in community engagement. I’m inspired by the opportunity to help strengthen the fulfillment of the School’s mission and share the School’s formula for success, which has been spearheaded by excellent educators and a legacy of recognized visionary leadership.”

González continues, “I’m very excited to find new ways to broaden the students’ professional trajectory and career opportunities, not just across the state, but nationally.”

González earned a B.Arch in Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin, a S.M.Arch.S in Architecture (History, Theory and Criticism) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses, according to UNM, on "U.S.-Latin American relations and representations of Pan-Americanism in the built environment" as well as "U.S.-Mexico border issues as built form, ephemeral installations, and public rituals." 

Through this focus, González published Designing Pan-America: US Architectural Visions for the Western Hemisphere, a book that focuses on the role of the architecture of World's Fairs with regards to U.S. diplomacy.

González is also the incoming President-Elect of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) a former board member of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Journal of Architectural Education, and the founding editor of the international journal AULA: Architecture & Urbanism in Las Américas. 

González will assume his new position at UNM on July 1, 2020.