Flores A. Forbes

Flores Forbes has been with the Columbia University community for 15 years. He is an Associate Vice President for Community Affairs in the Office of Government and Community Affairs. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation and at Columbia Law School where he teaches Critical Race Theory. In 2020 he was appointed to President Bollinger’s Anti-Racist Taskforce and led the planning effort to Combat Anti Black Racism in the communities surrounding Columbia University. Flores has published two books about race, Black radical politics, urban planning and criminal justice change. His most recent book Invisible Men: A Contemporary Slave Narrative in the Era of Mass Incarceration (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017) won the American Book Award for nonfiction in 2017. Prior to his time at Columbia, Flores was the Chief Strategic Officer at Abyssinian Development Corporation in Harlem and a city/urban planner as the Deputy Director of Land Use and Development in the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. He has a BA from San Francisco State University and a Masters of Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service NYU.