Brendan is an internationally recognized expert on media audiences and media consumption in cities, urban data visualization and mapping. His publications include the books Film Festivals (2016) and the Routledge Companion to Media and the City (2022), and the online journal Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, of which he was a founding editor. He grew up in New Jersey, studied at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and worked as a public programmer at the Chicago History Museum. At the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, he completed an MA and PhD on media industries and urban redevelopment. After stints as a Fulbright fellow at the University of Toronto Cities Center and in the Communications department at University of Calgary, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he is an Associate Professor of Film Studies and Production at Oakland University, teaching documentary film.

Mark has published five books on media and cities worldwide, especially in Europe and the United States. His second monograph Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles (2014) won the Urban Communication Foundation’s Jane Jacobs Award for Best Book and his Architectures of Revolt: The Cinematic City circa 1968 (2018) was named an Outstanding Title by Choice. He studied literature and theatre at Trinity College Dublin before completing a PhD on cinema and geography at the University of London in 1999. Since then, his projects have branched into cartography, data visualization, and architectural photography and filmmaking. He is Professor of Media and Urban Studies at King’s College London, where he was department chair from 2018-22. He is also active in public speaking, arts and media programming, and curating, most recently with the Getty Research Institute and Irish Architecture Foundation.