Jeremy Robinson-Leon

Jeremy Robinson-Leon is principal and chief operating officer at Group Gordon, a New York-based strategic communications firm named the Holmes Report’s Best Boutique Agency to Work For in North America in 2014 and 2015. He oversees all aspects of client service across the firm’s corporate, public affairs, and crisis practices and has considerable expertise in strategy, media relations, social media, and crisis management, appearing regularly as a commentator on related topics in the media. Jeremy advises leading companies and organizations, including Shake Shack, Union Square Hospitality Group, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, DonorsChoose.org, the Ford Foundation, Marcato Capital Management, and Schulte Roth & Zabel, among many others. He sits on the board of Enterprise Community’s Partners’ Gotham Society and early in his career worked with elected officials at both the state and Federal levels. He earned his B.A. in political science from Vassar College. 

Nora Rodriguez

Nora is an artist and educator working primarily with animation, drawing, and sound. Nora uses traditional hand-drawn animation techniques, often exploring the physical comedy of cartoons to create sculptural spaces. In addition to her work with CUP, Nora has completed teaching residencies throughout New York with the Queens Museum, Dia: Beacon, the Museum of the Moving Image, and Magic Box Productions, among others. Nora is excited by media education because of its particular potential to draw a direct line between active, creative learning and active, creative citizenship. 

Hugo Rojas

Hugo Rojas is a Media and Art educator, and multimedia artist. He has a B.A. in International Relations from Mexican University and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School. With over nine years of experience in education having taught from Spanish Language to Photography and video production in Mexico, Brazil, and NYC. Currently, he is teaching residencies in Manhattan and Brooklyn. He also explores public space through his art intervention, and in his spare time he bikes around Brooklyn.

Kate Rubin

Kate Rubin is Director of Policy & Community Development at The Bronx Defenders, a holistic public defender office in the South Bronx.  She leads the office’s legislative and administrative advocacy activities and partnerships with community based organizations. She also manages Reentry Net/NY, an online resource center that helps individuals and advocates navigate the consequences of arrest, criminal convictions, and incarceration.  Kate’s prior experience is in education and supporting grassroots organizing campaigns that fight for criminal justice reform and accountable in economic development.  She holds a BA in history from Cornell University and served on the board of CUP from 2006 to 2012.

Yasmin Safdié

Yasmin Renée Safdié is the Director of Programs at CUP. She is a radical social worker, community organizer and educator. Her work is grounded in an anti-oppressive framework, which seeks to ensure that those most affected by social issues are centered in movements for justice. For over a decade, she has worked on a range of social justice issues including: ending mass incarceration, anti-racism, and gender justice. Yasmin has extensive experience designing and facilitating anti-oppressive trainings and leadership development programs. Prior to CUP, Yasmin was the Senior Manager of Organizing and Advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project where she worked to end violence against the LGBTQ community. Yasmin is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at Columbia University School of Social Work and CUNY Hunter College. She is a member leader and Board Member at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, where she co-founded the Mizrahi Caucus, which organizes Arab/Middle Eastern/North African/Central Asian Jews. She received her M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University and her B.A. in History and Anthropology from McGill University. In her free time Yasmin loves to do ceramics and dance. 

Safety Net Project

The Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project (SNP) is New York City’s advocate for economic justice, combining direct legal services, litigation, research, and policymaking to achieve economic justice for all New Yorkers. We strengthen the safety net by ensuring access to public benefits, nutritional assistance programs, eviction prevention services, public housing, and emergency shelter to ensure that no New Yorker is without food, housing, or other basic human rights.

Paul Lloyd Sargent

Paul Lloyd Sargent is an artist and writer dividing his time between Brooklyn, Buffalo, and Wellesley Island, NY. His work focuses on the legacies of our supply and disposal chains, most recently documenting the impact of the international shipping industry on ecologies, economies, and communities connected by the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently a student in the University at Buffalo’s new PhD program in the Department of Media Study.

Students from Scary, Ok With It, Good

Students from the Academy of Urban Planning, in Aisha Haynes’ English Language Arts class, collaborated with CUP and Jonathan Bogarín on “Scary, OK With It, Good.”

Schema

is a research and design firm. They solve complex information problems through technology, data, design, and art. They create tools and experiences that turn information into action. 

Tal Schori

Tal Schori is a registered architect practicing in New York City. He currently works at Deborah Berke Partners where he focuses on institutional and residential projects, such as a university dormitory in Pennsylvania, and a single family residence in Indianapolis. He edited Perspecta 42: The Real (MIT Press, 2010), and is a regular contributor to design juries. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture (M.Arch, 2009) and Brown University (BA, 2003). 

Eric Schuldenfrei

Eric Schuldenfrei is a designer focusing on urbanism, architecture, and art. Projects completed in collaboration with Marisa Yiu have been featured in many international biennales, such as the Venice Biennale and the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Biennale. Past projects include an art installation commissioned by Agnes Gund, President Emerita of the MoMA, and a film for CUP’s exhibition Urban Renewal: City Without a Ghetto. Eric received a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, and the Architectural Association. Together with Marisa Yiu, Eric recently published the book Instant Culture. He has lectured at the Harvard University AsiaGSD series and the V&A museum in London.

Sarah Serpas

is a visually-driven person who also appreciates hard data and complicated concepts, so she was excited to work with CUP as their summer 2013 intern. She is currently working on her masters in City and Regional Planning at Pratt Institute, and has a special affinity for maps, sewage, and manufacturers. A Texan by birth, she moved to the City five years ago to study Physics and Urban Design and Architecture Studies at NYU. She is always looking for opportunities to see new parts of the city, as well as recommendations for Mexican food.

Students from Share, Where?

Students from Brooklyn College’s College Now program collaborated with CUP and Hatuey Ramos-Fermín on “Share, Where?”

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.