Porus Olpadwala is a professor of city and regional planning in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning with professional interests in political economy, comparative social and economic development, and urban and environmental issues. He holds an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Calcutta, India, and graduate degrees in business and in regional planning from Cornell. He has held many administrative positions at Cornell including Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, and Chair of the A. D. White Professors-at-Large Program. In an earlier career, in the 1960s, he worked in the private sector in India with Price Waterhouse and the Indian affiliate of Jardine Mathesen.

Professor Olpadwala diverts himself through music, poetry, reading and travel. He likes to cook and is partial to zany English humor. He has been known to paint but of late this interest has been limited to furtive doodling during boring meetings. He tried his hand at the violin for eight years during secondary school in India, but permanent deficiencies in pitch as well as coordination, supplemented by earnest entreaties from all in earshot to cease and desist, convinced him to abandon producing music and confine himself to enjoying it. The same lack of coordination possibly also kept him from distinguishing himself at sport, though he remains an avid armchair fan of many types of exertions, including and especially cricket, soccer and Formula 1 car racing.