Kristina Ford is one of America's best known urban planners, thinkers, and writers. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Ford's thoughtful, well-informed and articulate assessments - heard on CNN,BBC and National Public Radio - became the first, public voice of reason to mediate the great storm's human and civic consequences to America and beyond. From 1992 to 2000 Ford was Director of City Planning in New Orleans, for which she won the American Planning Association's Award for Distinguished Leadership. From 2000 to 2003, she was Director of the New Orleans Building Corporation. She has written on urban affairs, and specifically on New Orleans, for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times and for Planning, published by the American Planning Association. Her highly-regarded study, Planning Small Town America, is used as a text in many graduate urban planning programs in America, and she is a frequent lecturer and speaker on urban issues. In the Fall of 2009, Yale University Press will publish her new book, The Trouble with City Planning. Ford holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from The University of Michigan, and was, until her full-time entry into public service in 1983, Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public Administration at New York University.