Alice Shay

Alice Shay is an urban planner and city designer. She worked with CUP in 2005 on a performance art walking tour of Governor’s Island’s past imagined futures and an episode of Public Housing TV about tenant’s rights. Alice studied Modern Culture and Media at Brown University and City Planning at MIT.

Nadia Shen

Great design is more than style; its a combination of strategic thinking and creative solutions. Nadia Shen strives to deliver design concepts that are smart and engaging, and realized with clarity and imagination. After working as a lead designer at Parsons Institute for Information Mapping, a research and development lab for emerging design and technology, and Post+Beam, an integrated marketing and communications firm, she started Brite Lines-a design consultancy focusing on brand development and user experience for start ups and entrepreneurs. She is a graduate of Chelsea College, London and Parsons School of Design here in New York. britelines.com

Nadia was a 2013-2014 Public Access Design Fellow.

Molly Sherman

Molly Sherman is an artist and designer living in Portland, Oregon. Her practice is made up of socially engaged art projects and graphic design work. As a designer, she has worked at Project Projects and with a wide range of clients including the Hammer Museum and Portland Art Museum. She is currently an MFA candidate in Portland State University’s Art and Social Practice Program and holds a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Shristi Shrestha

Shristi was a Program Assistant at CUP. She received a BA from Mount Holyoke College with a major in Studio Art. She is interested in using art as a means of community engagement. As an artist for a public art project called Kolor Kathmandu, she painted murals around the city of Kathmandu, Nepal, where she was born and raised. Before CUP, she was an Intern at Renegade Performance Group. She enjoys walking, biking, and cooking.

Paul Shuette

Paul Schuette is an architect living in Los Angeles. Paul Schuette has worked on “The Connection between Abandoned Buildings and Homeless People.”

Nika Simovich

Nika Simovich, a New York based graphic designer, uses interactive experiences to explore the relationship between history and the internet. She is interested in non-designed spaces and the intersection of technology and design

Becky Slogeris

Becky Slogeris is a social designer and educator based in Baltimore, MD. A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, her work is focused on re-thinking public education and empowering students to create change in their communities. She worked with CUP and students at CUNY College Now to create “Get Money!” Becky’s website is http://designing-education.com/

David Smiley

David Smiley teaches architectural design and urban history at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. His research and teaching focus on the ways the discipline of architecture overlaps with planning, policy, preservation, finance and community-based initiatives. His book, Pedestrian Modern: American Architecture and Shopping, 1925-1956, (Minnesota, 2013) examines how architects joined modernist design and planning ideas with new programs and scales of retailing. Smiley has organized conferences on the use of public spaces and streets in New York City and has written about malls, urban design and suburban housing. He previously taught at Barnard College were he organized symposia including “Rights of Way” in 2009 and “Moving Toward Utopia” in 2010, at which invited planners, architects, community advocates and public officials examined bikeways and other changes to public space in the NYC. Previous publications include Redressing the Mall: Sprawl and Public Space in Suburbia (2002) and Hell’s Kitchen South: Developing Strategies (2001). David is a member and the Chair of CUP’s Board.

Students from Soda Census

Students from the Academy of Urban Planning, in Aisha Haynes’ English Language Arts Class, collaborated with CUP on “Soda Census.”

Juliette Spertus

Juliette Spertus is an architect and curator. Her work focuses on the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and public space. She uses cultural programming to publicly draw parallels between overlooked experiences of the recent past and current strategies for the built environment. She organized the exhibit Fast Trash: Roosevelt Island’s Pneumatic Tubes and the Future of Cities, and collaborated with CUP on the educational programming. She is continuing her research on pneumatic collection and is planning a new exhibition.

Angela Starita

Angela Starita is a graduate student, freelance writer and teacher. Her work has been published in The Architect’s Newspaper, Print, Metropolis, The New York Times, and other publications. She is interested in industrial architecture and the work of Lina Bo Bardi and other Brazilian modern architects. Angela was an intern at CUP.

Sam Stark

Sam Stark is the author of the children’s book Diderot: French Philosopher and Father of the Encyclopedia. He works as an assistant editor at Harper’s Magazine.

Sam Stark has worked on Building Codes, and Social Security Risk Machine.

Street Vendor Project

The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based project with nearly 2,000 vendor members who are working together to create a vendors’ movement for permanent change. We reach out to vendors in the streets and storage garages and teach them about their legal rights and responsibilities. We hold meetings where we plan collective actions for getting our voices heard. We publish reports and file lawsuits to raise public awareness about vendors and the enormous contribution they make to our city. Finally, we help vendors grow their businesses by linking them with small business training and loans.

The Street Vendor Project Collaborated with CUP on the Vendor Power! MPP.

Streetwise & Safe

Streetwise & Safe—also known as SAS—is a project by and for youth of color in New York City that shares the ins & outs, do’s & don’ts, and street politics of police encounters between LGBTQQ youth of color and the police. We also stand for and with LGBTQQ and youth with experience trading sex for survival needs. We feel knowing your rights makes you more confident in protecting yourself during and after interactions with the police. We also know that the reality is that the police don’t always respect our rights but knowing what they are is important so that we can fight for them later. We also create a space to share strategies to stay safe from all forms of violence experienced by LGBTQQ youth, and advocate for policies that will change the ways police interact with us.

Celina Su

Celina Su is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York and a co-founder of the Burmese Refugee Project. Her research focuses on civil society organizations, participatory community development and policy-making, and youth empowerment. She authored Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education Reform in the Bronx (Cornell University Press, 2009) and co-authored Our Schools Suck: Young People Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failure of Urban Education (NYU Press, 2009). She is a long-time CUP fan, as well as a contributing researcher and writer to its City Without a Ghetto project.