Teddy Cruz is known internationally for his urban research on the Tijuana/San Diego border, advancing border neighborhoods as sites of cultural production from which to rethink urban policy, affordable housing, and civic infrastructure. Recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture in 1991, his honors include the James Stirling Memorial Lecture On The City Prize, by the Canadian Center of Architecture and the London School of Economics in 2005, the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award in 2011, and the 2013 Architecture Award from the US Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including representing the US in the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale and “Small Scale Big Change” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010. In 2013-14, he was appointed a special advisor on Urban and Public Initiatives for the City of San Diego, leading the development of the Civic Innovation Lab. Teddy is a professor in public culture and urbanism at University of California, San Diego, where he is founding co-director of the Center for Urban Ecologies and The Cross-Border Initiative.