Professor Alan March is Professor of Urban Planning in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, a Masters degree (coursework and research) from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, and a Bachelors degree from Curtin University of Technology. March has practiced urban planning since 1992 and has advanced through academic roles at the University of Melbourne, including Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, Director of the Bachelor of Design, and Director of the Bachelor of Environments. He is a Member of the Planning Institute of Australia (MPIA) and serves as a supervisor for Natural Hazards Research Australia.

March's academic interests center on urban planning integrated with disaster risk reduction, bushfire management, climate change adaptation, governance, urban sprawl, and resilient communities. His research examines the intersections of planning systems with emergencies, including wildfire risk in urban-rural interfaces, post-disaster recovery, and spatial planning for resilience, as seen in studies on Australian bushfires like Black Saturday, Chilean wildfires, and tsunami recovery in Talcahuano. Key publications include the edited book Urban Planning for Disaster Recovery (2017, Elsevier) with Maria Kornakova; 'The role of spatial planning in adapting to climate change' (2012, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 263 citations); 'Urban morphology as a tool for supporting tsunami rapid resilience: A case study of Talcahuano, Chile' (2014, Habitat International, 158 citations); 'Towards new disaster governance: Subsidiarity as a critical tool' (2015, Environmental Policy and Governance, 96 citations); 'Suffer the Citizens: Urban Planning without Theory' (2005, Urban Policy and Research); and recent works such as 'Integrating wildfire risk management and spatial planning' (2020) and 'Long-established rules and emergent challenges: spatial planning and wildfires in Chile' (2022). With over 1,100 citations on Google Scholar, his scholarship influences disaster-resilient urban development. Awards include the Award for Excellence in Promotion of Planning at the 2016 PIA Victorian Awards for Planning Excellence and a Faculty teaching prize in 2007. March contributes to public discourse through articles on bushfires, tourism, and climate risks in Pursuit by the University of Melbourne.

Professional Email: alanpm@unimelb.edu.au