Stefan Al is a tenured professor and director of the Urban Planning program at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He has also served on the faculty of Virginia Tech, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and the University of Hong Kong, where he directed the urban design program. At Virginia Tech, he received both the Outstanding Creativity Award and the New Faculty Teaching Award.
Beyond the classroom, Stefan has trained design professionals as a sustainability consultant for Urban Green, a non-profit dedicated to climate-resilient buildings in New York City.
Studio Teaching
At Virginia Tech, Stefan led a graduate studio with Kay Edge in which students designed and fabricated full-scale greenhouse mock-ups exploring innovative sustainable materials—including polycarbonate, wood fabric, ETFE, printed clay, and solar panels—integrating sustainability, functionality, and design into a single project.
Seminar Teaching
Graduate students at Pratt Institute explored the structural and urban challenges of supertall buildings, developing tower proposals that investigated how extreme height reshapes city skylines.
Online Teaching
Stefan co-taught Designing Cities, an online course at the University of Pennsylvania with Gary Hack and Jonathan Barnett, which attracted more than 70,000 students.
Stefan Al has taught at universities including Hunter College, Virginia Tech, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, the University of Hong Kong, and UC Berkeley.
TED ED
Stefan has also contributed educational content to TED-Ed, the education branch of TED, creating animated videos on urban design topics that have collectively reached millions of viewers.