Michael Arad, the designer of the national Sept. 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center, will speak at Kansas University on April 27.

He is the inaugural speaker for the Thomas D. Galloway Lecture Series in Urban Planning at KU. In 2004, judges chose Arad’s design, “Reflecting Absence,” from more than 5,000 designs submitted for the memorial.

He is set to speak at 6:30 p.m. April 27 at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The event is free and open to the public.