Dennis Frenchman is the Leventhal Professor of Urban Design and Planning at MIT. He is also on the faculty of the Center for Real Estate. He is a founding principal of ICON architecture in Boston, an international architecture, urban design and planning firm. He has taught and practiced extensively in Asia, Europe, and South America and served as External Advisor on urban livability to the President of the World Bank. In the US, he has served on the boards of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the National Architectural Accrediting Board.

Dennis Frenchman's practice and research focuses on the transformation of cities. He is an expert on the application of media technology to city design and has designed large-scale technology driven developments including Seoul Digital Media City, in Korea, International Media Avenue, Beijing, China; the Digital Mile, in Zaragoza, Spain, and Media City:UK. He has a particular interest in the redevelopment of industrial sites and has prepared plans for the renewal of textile mill towns, canals, rail corridors, steels mills, coal and oil fields, shipyards and ports, including many of national historical significance. Among these, his plans for Lowell National Historical Park and the New York Urban Cultural Park System have become standards for urban cultural development in the US. He has played a major role in the renewal of downtown commercial centers and neighborhoods. Projects include the West Broadway Comprehensive Renewal Program, a national model for the revitalization of severely distressed public housing. His work in these areas has been widely published and has been citied three times as the most outstanding in the United States by the American Planning Association.

He holds a Master of Architecture in Advanced Studies and a Master of City Planning Degree from MIT.