Penelope Dean is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she teaches theory, history, and design and serves as coordinator for the Masters of Arts in Design Criticism program. Her research focuses on contemporary architectural culture, with an emphasis on the exchanges between architecture and the allied design fields. Dean’s writings have appeared in Architectural Design, Harvard Design Magazine, Log, and Praxis, and her publication projects have been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and a Visiting Scholars Residency at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. She has worked as an architect for the Dutch office MVRDV, and as editor for hunch, Content, and Crib Sheets. She is founding editor of the architectural magazine Flat Out.