Michelle Young is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP, where she leads the Urban Studies Workshop in the New York/Paris: A Shape of Two Cities program. She holds an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia GSAPP and a B.A. from Harvard in the History of Art & Architecture.
Young is an author, journalist, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Untapped New York, a web magazine about architecture, urban discovery, and exploration. She is the author of the forthcoming book The Art Spy, about French Resistance spy and Monuments Woman, Rose Valland, to be published by HarperOne, an imprint of Harper Collins. She is also the author of Secret Brooklyn, Secret New York: Hidden Bars & Restaurants, and Broadway.
Young appears regularly in documentaries and at conferences on urban issues. She has spoken at the United Nations and was an organizer of the Rockefeller Foundation conference, “Jane Jacobs Revisited.” She was featured on the History Channel production The Engineering That Built the World, Netflix’s Stay Here, Smithsonian Channel’s Searching for Secrets, PBS’ 10 That Changed America, National Geographic’s Strange Truths, and Tell Me Something I Don’t Know with Stephen Dubner. Her writing and photography have appeared at the Museum of the City of New York, the Venice Biennale and in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Hyperallergic, The Forward, Business Insider, Curbed, Metropolis Magazine, and more.