CAMBRIDGE, MA–Purnima Kapur is Harvard University’s Chief of University Planning and Design. In this role, she oversees all planning, design and regulatory approvals across all of Harvard’s real estate holdings.
“My job is ubique amongst University Planning jobs in that I plan for the academic campus of the University as well as engage in broader City building in Allston through the Enterprise Research Campus planning,” says Ms. Kapur. “This aspect of City and University planning is what attracted me to Harvard, after having spent over 25 years in New York City Department of City Planning.”
In the New York City Planning Department, her career culminating with her appointment by Mayor Bill de Blasio as the Executive Director of the City Planning Department, where she oversaw all land use planning and policies for the City of New York’s neighborhood planning studies, economic development, and resiliency initiatives.
Over the years, Ms. Kapur has also provided consulting services on projects in New York City, the United Kingdom, Australia, and closer to home, to Harvard’s Allston planning activities. Ahe served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University where she taught courses in zoning, planning, affordable housing, resiliency, and waterfront development. She is also a visiting faculty member at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
On March 8, 2025, Ms. Kapur will be honored as one of the 10 Outstanding Women of the Year 2025 during the 22nd Annual Woman of the Years Awards Gala at Burlington Marriott Hotel in Burlington, MA. Organized by INDIA New England News and produced by the Mishra Group, the gala is attended annually by about 400 business and community leaders, philanthropists, healthcare professionals and academicians.
To buy a ticket, please click here.
Ms. Kapur serves on the Board of the Hudson River Park Trust in New York, as well as on the Skyscraper Museum Board. She has received several awards throughout her career including a Mayoral Citation for her service to New York City, Building Brooklyn Award by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Award by the Zoning Advisory Council of New York, and New York Power Women 2018 Award by Bisnow among others.
Ms. Kapur holds a master’s degree in city planning and architecture studies and a Master of Science of Architecture Studies from MIT. She also holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture Delhi.
Here is Q/A with Ms. Kapur.
INDIA New England News: Please tell our readers about your work and what you enjoy most about it?
Purnima Kapur: I have worked in the field of Urban Planning for most of my career. Currently I am the Chief of University Planning and Design at Harvard University, responsible for all planning efforts across all of our Campus settings- Cambridge, Allston and Longwood, and Harvard’s properties across New England and beyond.
My job is ubique amongst University Planning jobs in that I plan for the academic campus of the University as well as engage in broader City building in Allston through the Enterprise Research Campus planning. This aspect of City and University planning is what attracted me to Harvard, after having spent over 25 years in New York City Department of City Planning.
Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer
In New York, I was fortunate to be part of the City’s Renaissance in the last almost three decades. I started out as a young planner fresh out of graduate school and had the privilege of working in almost every part of New York City’s five boroughs. I was the Planning director for the Bronx and Brooklyn, and ultimately the Executive Director of the agency overseeing all five boroughs. Over the years some of the projects I have been involved with include: revitalization of Downtown Brooklyn, the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront, DUMBO, Coney Island, the South Bronx, including the new Yankee Stadium and Port Morris, new housing and mixed use development in East Harlem, and in revitalizing Midtown Manhattan through new office building with transit and public realm investments.
INE: If you’re engaged with any charity or non-profit, please tell us why this organization and what do you do for them?
PK: I am on the Board of Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) and the Skyscraper Museum in New York City. HRPT is a joint City-State endeavor that was created on the west side of Manhattan along the derelict industrial waterfront.
Over the last 25 years, this linear waterfront park that straddles several NYC neighborhoods has evolved as an urban oasis including active and passive recreation, a sports complex, “Little Island”, the new home for Google in a former Marine building, food courts and waterfront restaurants, New York’s famous “Circle Line” and an urban beach.
The Park is required by it’s charter to be self-sustaining in its operations through commercial activities and lease arrangements. In recent years, the City and HRPT have worked jointly on providing additional funding for capital projects through creative zoning measures that have generated millions of dollars for the park. As a planner, I get to support the park through my planning and zoning expertise.
INE: What are your hobbies and interests?
PK: I love cities, and I like to travel, especially to vibrant and walkable Cities. I also like to cook, which is almost a meditative and relaxing endeavor for me.
INE: What is your rare talent—something people don’t know about?
PK: I love my sleep, especially on the weekends. I am perfectly happy staying in bed and doing the NYT puzzles.
INE: Your favorite books?
PK: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Namesake
A Gentleman in Moscow
Getting to Yes.
INE: Who inspires you the most?
PK: Everyday working women, who are juggling jobs, household chores and children.
INE: Your core value you try to live by?
PK: Treat everyone with respect and assume the best in each person. I think the ancient Hindu concept of “Vasudhaiva kutumbukam” is even more relevant in today’s interconnected world.
INE: If you get a chance to meet, who is the one person you would like to meet and why?
PK: I lost my grandmother, who I was very close to, when I was 12. She came to Delhi during the partition as a single mother of five, with her two young sons still in high-school. Soon after, her daughter was widowed at a few years after her marriage, and came to live with her. In hindsight, my grandmother was a feminist, without ever even knowing what that meant. In the sixties, she encouraged my aunt to go back to school and get a degree in education, so could be self-dependent, even though she lived with her mother and brothers in a joint family. My aunt went on to become the headmistress of her school with the degree she earned. My grandmother understood the implicit value and respect that self-dependence would bring her.
She also encouraged her three granddaughters (my siblings and I) to get the best education we could and “become something”. It is not by accident that my younger sister went on to become one of the first female commercial pilots in India; and I came to the US as a young 24-year old to go to graduate school on my own.
I would love to see how proud and delighted she would be to see where her children and grandchildren have reached. She would totally fit-in with today’s progressive strong powerful women.
INE: If you have to pick one, which one will you choose: Love or trust and why?
PK: Trust- there can be no love without trust.
