Rosten Woo

Rosten Woo is a cultural producer living in Los Angeles. He makes work that helps people understand complex systems and participate in group decision-making. He produces that work in partnership with local and national groups ranging from the American Human Development Project to the East Los Angeles Community Corporation. His work has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, the New Museum, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Netherlands Architectural Institute, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, on the internet, and in various public housing developments, tugboats, shopping malls, and parks in New York City and Los Angeles. His first book, “Street Value,” was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. He is co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). His website: www.wehavenoart.net

Leslie Wood

is an Illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY.  In addition to her illustration work she also does murals, ceramics, and jewelry.  Leslie received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design.  She is a lover of tacos, travel, and NCAA basketball. leslieawood.com

Erika Wood

Erika L. Wood is an Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School.  Previously, she was the Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice where she designed and launched major reform campaigns around the country and provided legal counsel and strategic guidance to advocates, legislators, and policymakers nationwide. Erika has litigated complex civil rights cases and is a frequent speaker and commentator on voting rights, criminal justice reform and racial justice issues.  In 2010, she worked with CUP to produce the MPP Know Your Lines.

Sandy Xu

Sandy was a Program Assistant at CUP. She has pursued her interest in all things sustainable and inclusive at a variety of places, including a civil society organization in China, a disaster relief nonprofit in Japan, and a political advocacy group in New Jersey. Originally from Hawaii, she studied Chinese and sociology at Peking University and has a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. She can make herself understood, for the most part, in Chinese and Japanese; she is working on her Swedish.

Mari Yahagi

Mari Yahagi is the Vice President of the JPMorgan, responsible for providing Governance and Oversight on investment products that are offered to the clients. Her educational background is on Urban Disaster Management and Public Policies, focused on urban policy review, conflict management, and decision making through group dynamic analysis. On pro bono basis, Mari has worked with Non-Profit Organizations focusing on social equality and justice in Japan, United States, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Turkey. She is also studying Ayurvedic Medicine to provide guidance for breastfeeding mothers and for families with young children.

Hrudaya Yanamandala

Hrudaya is an Engineer turned Designer from India. She is currently working as a Design Strategist at the Design and Innovation Group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York (MSKCC). Her work at MSKCC primarily consists of using Human Centered Design methodologies to improve patients, caregivers and clinicians experience in Cancer Care. Some of her other work consists of creating communication strategies for organizations like Going to School, India and United Nations Foundation.  She has also been awarded the Public Access Design Fellowship at the Center for Urban Pedagogy in 2018. She holds a Masters degree in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Hrudaya has a passion to work in the International Development sector. During her free time she enjoys painting, cooking and travelling with her family. To see her work, visit hrudayaveena.com.

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre is a Puerto Rican civil rights attorney of African and Indigenous ancestry born and raised in New York City. She is Executive Director ofUPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community based organization. Her vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE; she is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around sustainable just development in Sunset Park. She holds a BA from Fordham University and a law degree from Northeastern University.

Sucharitha Yelimeli

Sucharitha Yelimeli is CUP’s Program Coordinator. She hails from Northern California, and has a background in architecture, art, and teaching. Before coming to CUP she designed single-family homes and before that, was an art teacher. She’s interested in how people respond to design, especially at the city scale, and likes taking seemingly unapproachable ideas and making them friendlier. Some things she enjoys doing on the side are getting lost in a good book, making very intricate coffee cup doodles, and trying to win the affection of street cats.

Marisa Yiu

Marisa Yiu is an architect and founding partner of ESKYIU a multi-disciplinary architecture, design and research studio actively integrating culture, community, art and technology. Yiu served as the Chief Curator of the 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture. She has published in LOG, DomusChina, Metropolis, JAE, Routledge, and Architectural Record. She is an assistant professor at the School of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her B.A from Columbia and M.Arch from Princeton and involved in New York’s Chinatown Design Lab. With CUP she led and taught workshops at the summer design institute with the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, and created with Eric Schuldenfrei the Urban Renewal animation and activity tables for CUP’s exhibition “City Without a Ghetto”.

Sondra Youdelman

Sondra has been at CVH since 2000 and was named the organization’s Executive Director in March 2007; she was previously CVH’s Director of Public Policy and Research. Sondra has worked both in the United States and abroad to achieve social and economic justice through organizing. She has over 15 years experience as an organizer and activist with grassroots groups including farm workers, Native Americans, public housing residents, and low-income workers in the United States, and abroad for various populations throughout Latin America and in several African countries. She obtained a Master’s Degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in order to gain policy analysis tools to bring back to the grassroots. She also has a BA in American Studies focusing on Oppression and Revolution from Wesleyan University.

Sondra was a MPP juror.

Emily Young

Emily Young is a Chinese-American artist and designer living in Brooklyn, NY. Since graduating from New York University in 2014, she has been exploring how experimental art and architecture can bring about a more conscious relationship between humans and the built environment. Her favorite subjects as of late include informal cities, Chinatowns, youth culture, and fermentation practices. Most recently, she was the teaching artist for Our Voice, Our Choice: Why Vote in Local Elections?.

Youth Justice Board

The Youth Justice Board is a leadership program that gives young people a voice in policies that affect their lives, and provides policymakers access to the insights of informed young people. Each year, a team of high-school-age youth from across New York City investigates a juvenile justice or public safety issue, formulates policy recommendations and works to implement its recommendations. The current Youth Justice Board seeks to expand and improve the City’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) programs for young people charged with delinquencies. The Youth Justice Board is a project of the Center for Court Innovation and the Center for Courts and the Community. The Youth Justice Board was the advocate for the MPP I Got Arrested! Now What?

Ping Zhu

Ping Zhu is a Brooklyn-based illustrator. She received the ADC Young Gun in 2013 and has been recognized by American Illustration and Communication Arts. Her clients include the New York Times, Pentagram, New Yorker, Coach, GOOD Magazine, The Independent, Sunday Times, Pushkin Press, Hèlium, and Nobrow Press. She is a visiting instructor at Pratt Institute and a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Kate Zidar

Kate Zidar is an Environmental Planner with a professional focus on solid waste, open space, urban agriculture and stormwater management. As Executive Director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, she works to strike a balance between waterfront access, environmental health and economic development for the city’s most polluted waterway and one of it’s strongest centers for manufacturing and industrial jobs. Kate serves as Chairperson of the Steering Committee for the Stormwater Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.) Coalition, an organization dedicated to ensuring swimmable, fishable waters around New York City through Green Infrastructure. Kate is CUP’s biggest fan.