07/14/2026
José Antonio “Tony” Gómez-Ibáñez, Derek C. Bok Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Emeritus, died on June 10, 2026.
For nearly five decades, Tony Gómez-Ibáñez was a defining presence in the study of cities at Harvard, and a living bridge between the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the Harvard Kennedy School, where he held a joint appointment believed to be the first of its kind. He arrived at Harvard College as an undergraduate in 1966 and never really left. After earning his Master in Public Policy degree in 1972 and his PhD in 1975, he joined the GSD’s planning faculty. At the GSD, he chaired the Department of Urban Planning and Design (1984–1988) and directed the school’s doctoral programs (1992–1995). He was also instrumental in establishing the Master in Urban Planning program in 1994—when Harvard’s planning degree program returned to the GSD—and led it from 2001 to 2004. Until his retirement in 2021, he remained a leading voice in shaping the program’s future. Tony’s leadership extended to the other side of Harvard Yard as well. At the Kennedy School, he chaired the Master in Public Policy program (1996–1998) and the Social and Urban Policy Area (2007–2012), and for 15 years he cochaired the Infrastructure in a Market Economy executive program, training senior infrastructure officials from around the world.
Tony was also a leading scholar of transportation and infrastructure policy whose dozens of publications include the books Regulating Infrastructure (2003) and, with John R. Meyer, Autos, Transit, and Cities (1981). His counsel was sought far beyond the academy, by governments and institutions around the world. Among them were Boston’s City Hall, where he chaired Mayor Raymond Flynn’s Transportation Advisory Committee; the World Bank, on railway privatization in Brazil and transport strategy in Sri Lanka; and the National Academies, on questions from freight pricing to whether denser neighborhoods result in less driving and lower car emissions.
On the GSD website, we've gathered several remembrances of Tony from colleagues and former students. Link in comments.
