Patra Jongjitirat

Hi there! I’m a designer and founder of As the Crow Walks, a studio that specializes in cartography—an endeavor to convey the magic of cities and its web of corridors, life, and creativity. I also realize a variety of branding and marketing projects for clients engaged in the arts, culture, and community building. With any project, I’m interested in telling lucid narratives that empower people with constructive knowledge about the environment we exist and move in. I have a degree in Architectural Studies from Brown University, with further studies in graphic design at Parsons. https://asthecrowwalks.com/

Justice Committee

The Justice Committee (JC) is a grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement against police violence and systemic racism in New York City and empowering low-income Latino/as and other people of color to address these issues. Recognizing that true power can only be exercised by unified communities we prioritize developing the leadership of both youth and elders and strive to make our organizing a multi-generational effort. By building solidarity with other anti-racist, immigrant and people of color-led organizations, we seek to contribute to a broad-based movement for social justice. CUP collaborated with the Justice Committee to create We’re Watching: A guide to recording the police and ICE, a booklet that explains your rights and best practices for documenting law enforcement. https://www.justicecommittee.org/

Oumar Kane

Oumar Kane is CUP’s summer 2019 High School Intern. He was born in Ohio and spent time in Africa before moving to New York City to start his first year of high school. Oumar is a Junior at International Community High School and participated in 2 CUP projects during the year. These projects made him interested in interning at CUP. He is very interested in going into the health field when he graduates from high school. Oumar is also very creative and loves art which is another reason why he really wanted to intern at CUP. During his free time Oumar loves to play sports and exercise in order to stay fit. One of his favorite activities is to research and know more about the world. 

Jeff Kasper

joined CUP as an intern and Weston Scholar from The City College of New York. He studies art and the social sciences, with an independent focus on the perceptions and aesthetics of cities. He is interested in exploring how visual media can illuminate obscured shared values among diverse groups of urban dwellers. Jeff frequently engages in various design, writing, research, curatorial, pedagogical, and public projects. He currently is a contributor to The City Atlas of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, as well as GreenspaceNYC. His work has been featured at venues including the Art Directors Club, Phoenix Design Museum, FIGMENT, PS Project Space, among others.

Prudence Katze

Prudence Katze arrived in New York from Memphis, TN in 2004. Since then, she has graduated from the Cooper Union, and has been working with projects that examine our urban ecology. She started working with CUP as an Education Intern in 2009 and has assisted Hatuey Ramos-Fermin with both the “I Heart East New York” and “Who Benefits from Community Benefits Agreements at the Kingsbridge Armory” Urban Investigations. Prudence also taught a workshop with students from the Resilience Advocacy Project, and produced the resulting book “The Road to Cash Assistance.”

Anisa Keith

Anisa Keith is a Managing Director at BRP Companies, which specializes in green, urban, multi-family housing in the NY Tri-State area. In this capacity she is responsible for the development and expansion of BRP’s relationships with institutional investors. She joined the firm from Mumbai-based Khambatta Securities where she was Head of Global Sales for the firm’s Institutional Brokerage Group and worked on placements of real estate investment vehicles for the Tata Group (India’s largest conglomerate). She has 15 years of experience in the financial services sector, mainly as an analyst and sector fund manager with the $400 billion pension and insurance company, TIAA-CREF. Ms. Keith has held CFO and COO roles at two NY-based service companies, for one of which she also directed new business activities, including an expansion into the Mid-East/Gulf region. Additionally, as an independent consultant, she has provided advisory services to financial companies. Ms. Keith started her professional career as an analyst at Booz Allen and Hamilton.

Ms. Keith received her MBA from Columbia Business School in New York City and her Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

Ariel Kennan

Ariel Kennan draws upon her experience in multidisciplinary design to lead research, concept development, and design, collaborating closely with design teams, clients, vendors, and partners. Her passion is where experience design meets scale – from the palm of the hand to entire cities, and everything in between. She has created new mobile learning concepts, websites, kiosks, media walls, digital signs, new institutions, and new communities. arielkennan.com

Andy Kennedy

Andy Kennedy is a freelance animator/filmmaker/musician living in Brooklyn. He is a RISD graduate with a BFA in film/video/animation. His most recent stop-motion animated film, Accumulonimbus, has screened at film festivals and on computer screens worldwide. In collaboration with CUP, Andy has animated corn in Bodega Down Bronx, and made sewer sounds for H2 Oh No! His work can be seen at andykennedy.net

Matt Khinda

Matt Khinda is a designer trying to make cities better for the people who live in them. Originally from Washington, D.C., he currently lives and votes in New York City where he works as a designer at the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity. He holds a BFA in Industrial Design from RISD.

mattkhinda.city

Emma Kilroy

Emma Kilroy, Development Coordinator, joined CUP in July 2021. She was born in Pennsylvania and moved to New York City to study economics and environmental studies at Fordham University. She also has a visual arts background and works part-time as a studio assistant for a Brooklyn-based painter. Prior to joining CUP, Emma worked in development at Brooklyn Academy of Music where she fundraised for a variety of arts and arts education programs. She is interested in the power of art to affect social change, and is excited to get to know and support the work of CUP’s community and design partners.

Beom Jun Kim

Beom Jun Kim is an architect, visual artist and founding partner of WA.K Studio in Brooklyn. His research based practice is focused on exploring the intersection of narrative and design utilizing digital technology and virtual reality. Beom Jun was born in South Korea and grew up in Southern California where he studied business and economics at UCLA. He relocated to the east coast to study architecture and received his Master’s degree from Yale University. As an architect, he has experience leading public space and residential development projects in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Prior to architecture, Beom Jun has held positions as controller and CFO for a film production studio in Hollywood and practiced as a CPA at a real estate accounting firm in Los Angeles. Beom Jun joined the Board of CUP in 2016.

Inbar Kishoni

Inbar Kishoni is on a mission to improve the conversations decision makers have with the people they serve. As the Community & Equity Program Manager on Lyft’s Citi Bike team, she works on increasing access to the Citi Bike system for the City’s most-underserved populations. Included in her portfolio are programs that encourage CBOs to put on community-based bike rides, a partnership with Achilles International to provide adaptive bicycles for people with disabilities, and the Reduced Fare Bike Share program, which grants $5/mo memberships to NYCHA residents, SNAP recipients, and members of select Community Development Credit Unions.Previously, she spent 11.5 years at NYC DOT, first as a Project Manager in their Bicycle Program and ultimately as their first ever Director of Public Engagement & Program Development where she created NYC DOT’s Street Ambassador program – a lean and agile group of ten, multi-lingual outreach specialists that became integral to the way the agency communicates about and builds support for projects.Inbar holds a MA in Urban Planning from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a BA in Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is the co-founder of the Roberta Moses Happy Hour Club and has played keyboard and theremin in a few bands.

Aaron Koffman

Aaron Koffman leads The Hudson Companies’ affordable housing pipeline and portfolio. Aaron relishes the challenge of putting Hudson’s best feet forward on public and private competitions for development sites and building lasting partnerships with public, private and non-profit organizations. Aaron is continually inspired by his Hudson colleagues and loves working to bring transformative mixed-use developments like La Central, The Peninsula, BEC II and Greenpoint Hospital to reality. Aaron is a New York State Volunteer Firefighter who earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from UC Berkeley and his Master of City Planning from MIT. Aaron also serves on the NYC Waterfront Management Advisory Board as well as the Board of the NYU Furman Center, Coro New York, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy. He remains a diehard Los Angeles Lakers and Angels fan.

Jen Korff

Jen Korff is the founding principal art director and designer of Sophik Studio, a small one-woman shop that works to create positive change via an illustrative aesthetic and unique strategic approach. Jen’s intention and instinct guides her thinking as she works to build effective solutions that encourage conversation and engagement in and across communities to effect positive social change. Jen predominantly works with a handful of wonderful folks in Brooklyn and Chicago. Jen’s other interests include baking, experimental theatre, drawing her breakfast, cat snuggling, Johnny Cash, the films of Buster Keaton and Ang Lee, gardening, cheese, and golden retrievers. Jen designed CUP’s “Field Guide to Federalism” city studies book alongside teacher extraordinaire, Stephen Fiehn and CUP’s “Are you Ready for a Ruckus?” Urban Investigation book.

Raj Kottamasu

Raj Kottamasu is an artist, designer and urban planner. His work includes animation, print & web design, illustration, design research and cultural programming for organizations including The Architectural League of New York, Public Policy Lab, The Participatory Budgeting Project, and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. Raj also currently teaches Information Graphics in the Programs for Sustainable Planning & Development at Pratt Institute. He served as a Public Access Design Fellow in 2012, producing the animated video ‘Work Forced’ in collaboration with CUP and Damayan Migrant Workers Association.  He holds a Master’s degree in City Planning, with a certificate in Urban Design, from MIT. rajworks.com