José L.S. Gámez is the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs in the College of Arts and Architecture at UNC Charlotte. He has served as the Interim Director of the School of Architecture, as the Associate Director of the School, as a Provost Faculty Fellow, as well as a Research Fellow with both UNC Charlotte’s Institute for Social Capital and Urban Institute. He is currently serving as an advisory board member for the Dean’s Equity and Inclusion Initiative and representing the ACSA. He has also been elected to serve four years in leadership roles with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), including one as President.
José was the recipient of the 2015 Provost’s Award for Community Engagement, which recognized his action-based research and public scholarship and, in 2006, he was inducted into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Alumni Hall of Fame. His work has been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Places: A Forum of Environmental Design, The Journal of Urbanism, The Journal of Applied Geography, The Plan Journal, and Collaborations: A Journal of Community-based Research and Practice and in Writing Urbanism: A Design Reader, Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism, Charlotte, NC: The Global Rise of a New South City, and Latino Urbanism: The Politics of Planning, Policy and Redevelopment. He is also the co-editor of the books Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment and Vertical Urbanism: Designing Compact Cities in China. José continues to consult on design projects and his contributions to the work of assemblageSTUDIO have been featured in New Museums, Architecture and the Miniature and Architectural Record. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC Charlotte, he taught at Portland State University and the University of Nevada atLas Vegas. He received his Bachelor of Environmental Design from Texas A&M, his Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Architecture and Urban Design from the University of California at Los Angeles.
José is currently engaged in several new projects: he helped develop and launch UNC Charlotte’s ArtXSci initiative and he is collaborating and supporting UNC Charlotte faculty on two new edited volumes: one that will serve as a record of the innovative collaboration between a Geologist, a scientific team of researchers, and an Artist supported by a multi-year, multidisciplinary National Science Foundation grant involving expert teams from the US, Israel, Japan and the UK (UNC Press/UNC Charlotte Atkins Library); and another that will focus on issues of diversity, equity, access and justice in architecture and the built environment featuring essays, interviews and personal stories as well as historical and current writings from a diverse range of authors (Princeton Architectural Press).
