Conrad Kickert studies the evolving relationship between urban form, urban design, urban life, and the urban economy. He is an Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning, and the Director of Programs for the Rudy Bruner Center for Urban Excellence. Kickert has degrees in architecture and urbanism from the TU Delft in his native Netherlands, and he holds a PhD in architecture from the University of Michigan. He has worked as an urban researcher and designer for various design offices, property developers and non-profit organizations in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

For his entire life, Kickert has been fascinated by cities, their form, their function, and their meaning. The wide eyes of a young boy engulfed in the city through a Dutch streetcar window and his parents' map collection have evolved into a lifelong inquiry on how cities evolve and help us evolve. Conrad's urban fascination has prompted him to live in cities, design cities, study cities, and teach about cities. He is a firm believer in cities as conveners of people and ideas, and he instills this belief in his teaching, research, and public appearances. He regularly teaches urban design studios as well as courses on urban design methods, theory, and history.

Kickert has authored a range of award-winning articles and books on the form, evolution, life, and design of cities. His peer-reviewed articles have been featured in journals such as Urban Studies, Cities, Journal of Urban Design, and Urban Design International. He has written the Oxford University bibliography on urban retail districts and his work has been featured by the London School of Economics. His recent (co)edited books include the Palgrave Handbook of Bottom-up Urbanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Streetlife: Urban Retail Dynamics and Prospects (University of Toronto Press, 2022), and The Case for Cities (Routledge, 2024). Furthermore, he has authored the award-winning monograph Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit (MIT Press, 2019) and he was the lead author on Street-level Architecture: the Past, Present, and Future of Interactive Frontages (Routledge, 2022). He currently continues to pursue his fascination with the future of cities at eye level.

Among others, his work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ax:son Johnson Foundation, UBER, the Haile/US Bank Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and various property developers. His insights on cities have featured in news media such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, National Public Radio, and various local newspapers. He regularly discusses urban topics at universities, debates and conferences across the globe - including conferences he helps organize like the International Seminar on Urban Form, the Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory, and the new Bruner Debates on Urban Excellence. Besides his frequent travels, he remains firmly rooted in making a positive impact in the Buffalo region.

• TU Delft, Bachelor of Science in Architecture
• TU Delft, Master of Science in Urbanism
• University of Michigan, PhD in Architecture

• International Planning History Society (2020) - Koos Bosma Prize for Innovative Planning History for Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit
• Urban Land Institute (2020) - Finalist for the Hines Urban Design competition in Miami, supervising student team comprising Caroline Errico, Stacy Felchner, Todd Funkhouser, Robert Peebles, and Christian Umbach
• British Institute of Civil Engineers (2014) - Reed Mallik Award for best paper in Journal of Urban Design and Planning, with co-authors Stefan van der Spek and Tine van Langelaar