Elizabeth Morton

Professor in Practice in Urban Affairs and Planning

Dr. Elizabeth Morton is Professor in Practice and Director of The Planning Academy at Virginia Tech’s Alexandria Center.She specializes in urban design, historic preservation and cultural policy and planning.

Dr. Morton received her Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Planning from M.I.T., with a focus on City Design and Development. She also holds a masters degree in Urban and Regional planning from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. from Williams College.

Dr. Morton joined Virginia Tech in 2005, after returning from 4-1/2 years in Jakarta, Indonesia. While in Jakarta, she worked on heritage preservation and development projects for the World Bank and conducted an analysis of the policy environment for creative industries in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for UNESCO.Other international experience includes working as a planning consultant for the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

Here in the United States, Dr. Morton has worked for a variety of historic preservation and cultural agencies and organizations.She has also conducted research for publications from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and for the M.I.T. Project on Social Investing.

Dr. Morton has been appointed to the Oakland (CA) Strategic Plan Task Force; the Oakland Percent for Art Advisory Committee; Governor Pete Wilson’s Preservation Task Force (Incentives Committee); the Charles River Crossing Public Art Advisory Group; and the Somerville (MA) Arts Council.

She can be reached at ElizabethMorton@vt.edu.