Co-Director, MSc Building and Urban Design in Development Michael Safier is a widely respected development economist and geographer specialising in urbanisation and regional development, urban growth policies, action planning and the cosmopolitan culture of cities. He was formerly research fellow at Makerere Institute of Social Research, Kampala and has conducted studies on national urban policies for the Government of Uganda, the East African Community and ECA. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank Urban Sector Study of Iran and has held research and advisory assignments in East Africa, South Africa, Indonesia, China, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Tonga. At present, he co-directs the MSc. programme in Building and Urban Design for Development at UCL (with Babar Mumtaz).

He has written widely on globalisation and urbanisation processes all over the world on behalf of City (1993, 1996, 2001, 2002) and Habitat International, for example, and has published edited books and chapters in collected volumes.