There's a changing of the guard at Harvard University. This year, a woman president, Drew Gilpin Faust, will run the show at arguably the world's most prestigious university. And on September 20, Faust announced that the GSD can also look forward to a year of new ideas and new leadership under new dean Mohsen Mostafavi.

Born in Iran, Mostafavi's no stranger to the GSD - he was an associate professor from 1990 to 1995, directing the Masters in Architecture program from 1992. He moved on from Harvard to London's Architectural Association, where he served as chairman for 9 years from 1995 to 2004, launching new programs in landscape urbanism and emergent technologies.

Most recently, Mostafavi has been at Cornell, where, also as dean, he established an educational facility in New York City. That facility offers courses in collaborative design processes and cross disciplinary work. A facility for the departments of Art, Architecture and City and Regional Planning, it, crucially, gives Cornell students direct exposure to New York's creative core. Mostafavi was, in part, also responsible for selection of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture for the design of Paul Milstein Hall. This ambitious project (estimated cost: more than $40 million) included collaborative spaces for studios, meeting rooms, a large auditorium, and exhibition spaces.

His plans for Harvard aren't yet fixed, and he doesn't start till January. But if Mostafavi's years at the AA and Cornell, and interest in cutting edge research and cross-disciplinary approaches are anything to go by, 2008 looks set to be an exciting year for the school.