Karen Franck, PhD is a professor in the New Jersey School of Architecture and the Department of Humanities at New Jersey Institute of Technology. She also serves as director of the PhD Program in urban systems.

Her research interests related to cities have included alternative housing, the role of building and place types in ordering space, food and the city, and possibilities for unexpected uses of urban public space. Publications related to these interests are: New Households, New Housing, edited with Sherry Ahrentzen (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989), Ordering Space: Types in Architecture and Design, edited with Lynda Schneeloth (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1994), Food and the City (guest-edited issue of Architectural Design 2005) and Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life (Routledge, 2006).

Franck holds a PhD in environmental psychology from the City University of New York.