Richard Plunz has taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Pennsylvania State University and has held visiting positions at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Politecnico di Torino. Richard served as Chairman of the Division of Architecture at Columbia University between 1977 and 1980, has been Director of Columbia's Urban Design Program since 1992 and Director of Columbia’s Earth Institute Urban Design Lab since 2005.
He has conducted long-term research on
architecture and urbanism in Italy and Turkey, and he has received support from
the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, the New York State Council on
the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and the J. M. Kaplan Fund. In 1991 he received the Andrew J. Thomas
Award from the American Institute of Architects for his work in housing. Richard received a fellowship from the Design Trust for Hell's Kitchen South: Developing
Strategies.