CUP relies on a jury of design and social justice luminaries to select both designers and advocacy partners for the program. The current jury members will be selecting the first two Public Access Design projects.
Amid Amidi is the award-winning author of numerous books about contemporary and classic animated filmmaking, including the essential “Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation” and “The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts and Select Art from 25 Years of Animation.” He is the editor-in-chief of the influential industry website cartoonbrew.com. In addition to writing extensively about the animation art form, he lectures at studios, schools and festivals internationally. He lives in Brooklyn.
Luna Ranjit is the co-founder and Executive Director of Adhikaar. She has over ten years of experience in organizing, activism, and participatory action research in the US and South Asia. Prior to Adhikaar, she worked at Andolan, APICHA, and New Voices National Fellowship Program. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, and a master’s degree in public and international affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She regularly appears on print and broadcast media on issues related to workers’ rights, language access, and the needs of the emerging Nepali-speaking community. She currently lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Phillip Tiongson is a founder of Potion, a design and technology firm that employs the latest technology to create smart, delightful interactions. A leader in the field of interaction design, Phillip has worked for the past decade creating interactive installations for every setting from high-traffic museums and public spaces, to intimate lounges and private dining rooms, to ubiquitous mobile apps. He combines his training from the MIT Media Lab with his MFA from Columbia University in Film Directing to bring the craft of storytelling together with the toolbox of a software engineer.
Anusha Venkataraman is an urban planner, writer, artist, and activist. She is presently the Director of the Green Light District initiative at El Puente, a community human rights institution in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked with numerous community groups in local organizing efforts, and as a visual artist both individually and with collectives. In 2010, she edited Intractable Democracy: Fifty Years of Community-Based Planning, a book celebrating New York City’s legacy of grassroots neighborhood-based activism. Anusha was the Youth and Outreach Director at the Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brown University.
Minh Anh Vo is one half of Papercut, along with Victor Schuft. Minh Anh & Victor are two French graphic designers, though their names may sound either Vietnamese or German. Minh Anh was born in Annecy and grew up in Paris. Victor comes from Troyes. They met in Brussels, where they studied Graphic Design and Typography at La Cambre School of Arts. After graduating in 2006, they decided to move to Los Angeles and eventually got married at LAX. They are now living and working in Brooklyn. Papercut worked with CUP to design the Fracking in the Delaware River Watershed MPP.
Priscilla González has over 10 years of experience working to build power among immigrant communities of color in NYC. Until 2012, she had the honor to serve as the Executive Director of Domestic Workers United, bringing the historic fight for the nation’s first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to a close and successfully transitioning DWU into a full-fledged, independent organization. Recently, she joined another historic and high-profile campaign, working for real police reform in NYC. Priscilla is a graduate of Barnard College and the London School of Economics. She is the proud daughter of a fierce South American immigrant woman who taught her the values of justice and struggle.
Shana Agid is an artist, teacher, writer, and activist whose work focuses on relationships of power and difference, particularly regarding sexuality, race, and gender in visual and political cultures. Agid is an Assistant Professor of Arts, Media, and Communication at Parsons the New School for Design where he teaches book arts, collaborative design, and service design. She has an MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. He is on the Editorial Board of Radical Teacher.
Jake Barton is principal and Founder of Local Projects, which is creating the media design for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, StoryCorps, Change By Us, and the Frank Gehry designed Eisenhower Presidential Memorial. Local Projects has visited the White House three-times as a National Design Award finalist, and was named the second most innovative design firm by Fast Company for its use of technology to redefine urban spaces and emotional storytelling. Jake is recognized as a leader in the field of interaction design for physical spaces, and in the creation of collaborative storytelling projects where participants generate content. Current clients include the BMW Guggenheim Lab, Seaworld, Microsoft, Google, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the National Museum of African-American History and Culture.
Vicki Been is the Boxer Family Professor of Law at New York University and the Director of Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. She is at the cutting edge of legal scholarship in land use, urban policy, and housing. Been writes about land use and housing policy, the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, environmental justice, and fair housing. She is the co-author of a leading land use casebook, Land Use Controls, with Robert Ellickson, Rick Hills and Christopher Serkin. Been’s current research focuses on the public policy aspects of the mortgage finance crisis, the effect of the housing crisis on Black and Latino families, the role of zoning and other regulations in shaping development patterns, and historic preservation. In February 2012, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, which Been co-directs, was named a recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in recognition of the Furman Center’s excellence in providing objective, policy-relevant research to address the challenges facing neighborhoods in New York City and across the nation.
Liz Danzico is part designer, part educator, and part editor. In her practice, she cultivates strategic design and user-centered programs through collaborative methods in education, in digital design, and in technology to foster positive change. She is co-founder and chair of the MFA in Interaction Design Program at the School of Visual Arts. She is an independent consultant, working with businesses on design, planning, and execution of short- and long-term digital programs for global companies and nonprofit organizations. She is advisor to startups, nonprofits, and global companies alike and frequent lecturer. She has written for design-minded publications, including Eye Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Interactions Magazine, and writes part of her time at bobulate.com.
Adriene Holder serves as Attorney-in-Charge of the Civil Practice of The Legal Aid Society, and is responsible for managing the provision of comprehensive civil legal services through a network of 25 neighborhood offices courthouse based offices, and specialized city-wide units serving all five boroughs of New York City for the oldest and largest provider of legal services for low income individuals and families in the United States. The Civil Practice works on over 43,000 civil matters yearly. In addition to her formal duties, Adriene also serves as an executive member on several boards, is actively involved with not-for-profits, and in 2002 was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as a Tenant Representative on the New York City Rent Guidelines Board.
Jeff Lai is a creative director and graphic designer. He started his studio, Office of Jeff in 2004 and works with clients in every industry across a broad range of media including print, motion, and digital. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and Pratt Institute. Office of Jeff worked on What is Affordable Housing?, Bodega Down Bronx, Making Policy Public, and the Zoning toolkit with CUP.
Leah Obias is Campaigns Coordinator and Case Worker for Damayan Migrant Workers Association, a grassroots, membership-based organization of Filipino women domestic workers and other low-wage migrant workers in the New York City area. Leah was a founding member of the youth organization Ugnayan, where she worked on local youth-centered programs addressing issues of cultural identity, education and family separation, and helped to develop the organization’s first youth restaurant worker campaign on wage theft. As Damayan’s campaign coordinator, Leah directly supports members with cases while connecting them to larger organizing efforts and advocacy on wage theft, trafficking, and the proper valuation of domestic work as women’s work. Through Damayan’s leadership in the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Leah has also been active in national efforts to build the power of domestic workers and expand workers’ right to organize across different industries.
Eddie Opara was born in Wandsworth, London in 1972. He studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and Yale University, where he received his MFA in 1997. He began his career as a designer at ATG and Imaginary Forces and worked as a senior designer/art director at 2×4 before establishing his own studio, The Map Office, in 2005. He joined Pentagram’s New York office as partner in October 2010. Opara is a multi-faceted designer whose work encompasses strategy, design and technology. His projects have included the design of brand identity, publications, packaging, environments, exhibitions, interactive installations, websites, user interfaces and software, with many of his projects ranging across multiple media. Opara is a visiting critic at Yale University and teaches narrative design at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Columbia University School of Architecture and the Yale University School of Art. He currently serves on the board of the New York Chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design.
Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is the founder and editor of Brain Pickings. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic, and Design Observer, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.
Damaris Reyes is the Executive Director of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES). A lifelong resident of the Lower East Side, she has been involved in community organizing and housing issues both locally and nationally for more than a decade. Under Reyes’ leadership, GOLES expanded the scope of its work to include, land use, environmental public health, and economic justice. Her commitment to working collectively to organize and to build power for low-income communities of color in the decision-making that shapes the future of their lives and the Lower East Side neighborhood brought the organization into a pivotal role on a range of key issues including the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, Living Wage, and the redevelopment of the East River Waterfront. Reyes currently sits on the board of the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development, the advisory board for the Center for Neighborhood Leadership, and the Land Use, Zoning, Public & Private Housing Committee of Manhattan Community Board 3. She is the recipient of the 2006 New York Women’s Foundation’s Helen La Kelly Hunt Neighborhood Leadership Award, the 2008 Urban Agenda Visionary Award, and the proud winner of the 2009 Jane Jacobs Medal from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Municipal Arts Society.
Andrew Sloat is a graphic designer and filmmaker. His studio makes books, identities, educational videos, ads, and websites for non-profits, cultural institutions, and corporate clients. He lives and works in Brooklyn, is active in local and state-level good-government activism, and teaches in the graphic design MFA program at RISD.
Valeria Treves is the Executive Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a community based organization and workers center in Jackson Heights Queens that works to ensure that new immigrants can build social, political and economic power in their communities and beyond. As Executive Director, Valeria has overseen the transition of NICE into a member led organization streamlining programs and campaigns to more closely fit the needs of the member base, newly arrived low wage undocumented immigrants working in the unregulated sectors of the construction, domestic work, and service industries. Prior to coming to NICE in 2006, Valeria worked as an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College-CUNY and was an adjunct organizer for the PSC-CUNY. Before that she worked as a Middle School Teacher in Oakland, California and was active in teacher organizing in the fight against high-stakes standardized testing. Valeria holds an M.A. in Geography from Hunter College-CUNY and a B.A. in Development Studies from UC Berkeley. Valeria is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and grew up in Mexico, Argentina and Los Angles, CA.
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 of UPROSE, 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.
Shana Agid is an artist, teacher, writer, and activist whose work focuses on relationships of power and difference, particularly regarding sexuality, race, and gender in visual and political cultures. Agid is an Assistant Professor of Arts, Media, and Communication at Parsons the New School for Design where he teaches book arts, collaborative design, and service design. She has an MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. He is on the Editorial Board of Radical Teacher.
Neil Donnelly makes books, printed matter, websites, exhibitions, and illustrations. He has worked with the Guggenheim, the New Museum, Yale University, Domus, The New York Times, Princeton Architectural Press, and Storefront for Art and Architecture, among others. He has taught courses and led workshops at Yale, SVA, MICA, Parsons, Rutgers, and Illinois, and he holds an MFA in graphic design from Yale. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
Priscilla González has over 10 years of experience working to build power among immigrant communities of color in NYC. Until 2012, she had the honor to serve as the Executive Director of Domestic Workers United, bringing the historic fight for the nation’s first Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to a close and successfully transitioning DWU into a full-fledged, independent organization. Recently, she joined another historic and high-profile campaign, working for real police reform in NYC. Priscilla is a graduate of Barnard College and the London School of Economics. She is the proud daughter of a fierce South American immigrant woman who taught her the values of justice and struggle.
Christina Nizar is a Communication Designer at IDEO who brings a passion for visual storytelling to the design of print, packaging, environments and digital interactions. Her work to date has spanned both for-profit and non-profit realms, and she lets one influence another as she crafts the visual voice and tone for clients that range from hospitality to financial institutions to philanthropic organizations. Prior to IDEO, Christina worked for Michael Beirut at Pentagram New York, and with clients such as New York Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, NYU and Teach for America. Christina earned a multiple awards including a Type Directors Award for her work with the New York Times Magazine, and a Webby for IDEO’s Future of the Book concept piece. She began exploring the intersection of design and human behavior in school, studying Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design and Political Science and Sociology at University of California Irvine. Today, Christina continues to use her work as a way to explore the nuances of culture and the possibilities of social change through design.
Ericka Stallings is the Director for the Initiative for Neighborhood and City-Wide Organizing (INCO) at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD). INCO is a funding and capacity-building program that has become a national model of how to catalyze and support high-impact community organizing. Prior to that, she was a Housing Advocacy Coordinator at the New York Immigration Coalition.
Amy Taylor is the Language Access Project Coordinator at Legal Services NYC, the largest provider of free civil legal services for low-income people in the country, where she runs a cutting edge project that seeks to increase access to services and justice for low-income limited English proficient (LEP) New Yorkers through litigation and policy advocacy. The Language Access Project seeks to both improve the accessibility of Legal Services NYC’s own services and to challenge discriminatory practices that prevent LEP clients from obtaining the government benefits and services to which they are entitled. Before working at Legal Services NYC, Amy was the Director of Policy at the New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. Amy received her J.D. from the CUNY School of Law.
Anusha Venkataraman is an urban planner, writer, artist, and activist. She is presently the Director of the Green Light District initiative at El Puente, a community human rights institution in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked with numerous community groups in local organizing efforts, and as a visual artist both individually and with collectives. In 2010, she edited Intractable Democracy: Fifty Years of Community-Based Planning, a book celebrating New York City’s legacy of grassroots neighborhood-based activism. Anusha was the Youth and Outreach Director at the Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brown University.
Minh Anh Vo is one half of Papercut, along with Victor Schuft. Minh Anh & Victor are two French graphic designers, though their names may sound either Vietnamese or German. Minh Anh was born in Annecy and grew up in Paris. Victor comes from Troyes. They met in Brussels, where they studied Graphic Design and Typography at La Cambre School of Arts. After graduating in 2006, they decided to move to Los Angeles and eventually got married at LAX. They are now living and working in Brooklyn. Papercut worked with CUP to design the Fracking in the Delaware River Watershed MPP.
