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Michael Young Appointed Dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture

POSTED ON: December 9, 2025

Image of Young at the Lincoln Lectern in the Great Hall

Photo by Marget Long

The Cooper Union is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael Young as the next dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, effective April 1, 2026. 

Young currently serves as an associate professor and coordinator of graduate studies for the school of architecture. He is the founding partner of the acclaimed architectural practice Young & Ayata. His firm has received accolades including the Progressive Architecture Award, Design Vanguard Award, AIANY Honor Award, and most recently, the Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Their work has been exhibited at institutions around the world. A widely published author, Young’s books include The Estranged Object (Graham Foundation, 2015) and Reality Modeled After Images (Routledge, 2022). He has taught at numerous institutions, including as the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor at Yale University and as the Joseph Esherick Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Young was awarded the prestigious Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome for 2019–2020. 

A member of the Cooper Union faculty since 2005, Young has shown a deep investment in The Cooper Union and its mission of free education. “Michael is uniquely positioned to build on the Cooper Union’s legacy in design experimentation and our contribution to architecture pedagogy, while also evolving the school as a center for public discourse in architecture to address the urgent issues of our time here in New York City and around the world,” said Steven McLaughlin, president of The Cooper Union. 

“Michael Young represents the best of us,” said Benjamin Aranda, acting dean of The Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. “He is a dedicated teacher, inspiring architect, and distinguished academic, whose new role as dean formalizes the longstanding leadership he commands here among both students and faculty. I have the highest ambitions for our future together and can think of no one better to steward this precious institution forward.” 

Young shared his enthusiasm for the next chapter of The Cooper Union’s school of architecture: “This is truly an honor. I am thrilled and humbled with the opportunity before me to work with the students, faculty, staff, and President McLaughlin on the next transformations for the school that continually inspires me.”

More News from The Cooper Union

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.