Sam Chandan is stepping down from his position as dean of the Schack Institute at NYU’s School of Professional Studies.
But he won’t be going far.
Chandan is joining the faculty of NYU Stern School of Business to head the school’s real estate programs. He will start next week.
As the dean of the program, Chandan held one of New York’s most prominent positions in real estate academia and worked directly with New York real estate’s most notable figures, including Schack Institute founder Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties and Newmark president of investor services Jimmy Kuhn, Schack’s advisory board chairman.
Chandan said his time at the helm of the program “has been the absolute greatest privilege of my professional career.”
The former dean previously worked as chief economist of Real Capital Analytics. He also runs Chandan Economics, a commercial real estate research firm.
Chandan said he is looking forward to heading back to the classroom, in addition to working on “research that impacts policy.”
One focus will be on urban resilience examining how cities and real estate face challenges such as climate change and public health threats. Other initiatives include property technology, data science with a focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, and environmental and social impacts.
“This is an opportunity for me to really advance our research and industry impact in these key areas,” said Chandan.
Under Chandan’s tenure at Schack, the program secured the largest gift in its history as part of a collaboration with NYU Shanghai to create the NYU Institute for Cities and Real Estate in Emerging Market. During Chandan’s time as dean, the program also launched a new national conference — the National Symposium of Women in Real Estate (WIRE) — working with three board members, Laurie Golub of Square Mile Capital, Joanne Minieri of RXR, and Darcy Stacom of CBRE.
A national search process is underway for the Schack Institute’s new dean, according to Chandan, who said he is not involved in the hiring process.
Schack offers undergraduate programs as well as three graduate degrees: An MS in Real Estate, an MS in Real Estate Development and an MS in Construction Management.