Dr. Kickert has a background in urbanism and architecture from the TU Delft (Netherlands) and holds a PhD in architecture from the University of Michigan. He has worked as an urban researcher and designer for various design offices, property developers and non-profit organizations in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is an urban design scholar whose research focuses on urban morphology, downtown revitalization and the bridge between urban form, configuration and retail economics. Currently, he is studying the relationship between buildings and public space in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Furthermore, he has finished a book manuscript on the history of downtown Detroit, and a handbook on bottom-up urbanism.