Dr. Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta (“Dr. Matt”) is an award-winning scholar, writer, and artist working at the convergence of place, taste, and urban change. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Philadelphia Tribune, Bloomberg CityLab, and Philadelphia Magazine. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of the forthcoming book Black Urbanism: Palms Growing in Concrete (2025). Dr. Kenyatta has served as the youngest member of the Philadelphia Art Commission and co-stars in the Al Roker-produced documentary Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn (2023). He lives in North Central Philadelphia with his husband, State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta.

Dr. Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta ("Dr. Matt") is an artist, author, and advocate who studies the histories, geographies, and technologies of Black innovation. Dr. Kenyatta advances beauty in place, taste, and urban change by documenting how spaces of Black commerce and cultural heritage create environments of joy, justice, and genius within urban communities. As a first-generation college graduate, he earned his Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies with Honors and African & African-American Studies from Stanford University. In 2018, he made history as the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in the field of urban planning in the nearly 100 years of its existence at the University of Southern California; he focused on economic development, cultural geography, and with a partial focus on visual ethnography while supporting the USC Spatial Analysis Lab (SLAB) and the Price Center for Social Innovation.

Since 2018, Dr. Kenyatta has held various faculty and staff roles at the University of Pennsylvania, including as a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow, lecturer in Architecture, City Planning, and Undergraduate Fine Arts, and as the inaugural Director of Justice and Belonging Initiatives. His advocacy led to the creation of the Justice and Belonging Fund, the inaugural Black Planners Society, and Julian Abele Lecture, among others. He has taught on public art, architectural history, design justice, and commercial placemaking. As a Community Engagement Fellow, he was awarded a Faculty Fellowship in Community Development and the Arts by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships for his work as the primary academic and community consultant for the New Freedom District in historic West Philadelphia. He was also named an Emerging Scholar by the Penn Institute for Urban Research.

Dr. Kenyatta is the author of the forthcoming creative non-fiction book Black Urbanism: Palms Growing in Concrete (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025), which maps how Black artists and entrepreneurs have created cultural meccas within cities based on his scholarship on the contemporary history of the Crenshaw community. He has also conducted a multi-year photographic preservation project on Instagram called @BlackUrbanism, which has been exhibited in group shows at the University of Washington and the Weitzman School of Design. His scholarly contributions include publications in The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, and Futurity (Duke University Press), Just Urban Design: Struggling for The Public City (MIT Press), and peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association and Urban Geography. He has coined critical and creative terms such as “Afrotechtonics,” “blacklighting,” and “placesteading” to the fields of urban design, planning, and geography, among others.

Dr. Kenyatta has served as the 21st Century Historic Preservation Leaders Fellow with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and as the youngest ever Philadelphia Art Commissioner, where he worked to advance cultural preservation and public art initiatives. He is also the visionary behind the award-winning Museum of Hidden Genius, an ongoing artistic research project dedicated to preserving and activating the hidden heritage of African American invention and 'Afrotech.' His work and expertise have been recognized in various media outlets, including profiles in the New York Times and the Philadelphia Tribune, and quotes in Bloomberg CityLab, Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, and KBLA Radio.

In addition to his academic and governmental roles, Dr. Kenyatta is affectionately known as “The First Gentleman of North Philadelphia.” He is a co-star of the political drama/love documentary film Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn (Al Roker Entertainment, Seven Knots Productions), which premiered in London’s British Film Institute. It is now streaming on Tubi and Amazon Prime after an award-winning festival run around the country. He lives in North Central Philadelphia with his husband, the Honorable State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, and their dog Cleopatra.