Hatuey Ramos Fermín

Hatuey Ramos Fermín is an educator and multimedia artist who uses photography, video, installation, graphics, performance, intervention, maps, sounds, and social and curatorial practices to creatively investigate issues related to urban space. His work is informed by the documentary and the fine arts.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Sam Holleran

Is an artist, designer, and writer. Sam was CUP’s Communications Coordinator from 2011 to 2014. He attended the the Cooper Union where he was the recipient of the Herb Lubalin Fellowship for Typography and the Benjamin Menschel Fellowship for Creative Inquiry. Sam has worked extensively in printmaking; his fields of interest include: photogravure, letterpress, Ukiyo-e, and silkscreen.

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Students from Share, Where?

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

Shauna Badeker

Shauna is working on her undergraduate degree in Community Studies with a minor in Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, go Banana Slugs! Her passion for social justice, alternative education, and travel have brought her to CUP. She is on a mission to break down the injustices of “the system” and to pull knowledge from everywhere she can. You might find Shauna running around New York City (literally running) training for her next marathon, waiting in absurdly long lines for poetry slams, or laying in the sun eating a burrito (back in California, of course). 

Pema Domingo-Barker

Pema was CUP’s Program Assistant for youth education programs. She previously worked at the Queens Museum and was a Public Allies New York fellow. Pema grew up in Bangkok and went on to study art at the University of Washington and the University of the Arts London.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Oscar Nuñez

Oscar was a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. He is a graduate of the City and Regional Planning Master’s Program at Pratt Institute with a concentration on Community Development. While completing his studies at Pratt, Oscar worked and interned in various local community organizations and groups, including CUP, on issues dealing with planning, design, and community education and engagement. Previously, he received a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.  Originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and French and can give pretty good directions in Portuguese.

Patrick Rowe

Patrick Rowe is an artist, educator, and social practitioner based in New York City. Trained as a printmaker, and committed to pedagogically based practices, Patrick brings printmaking into public space. Through community based art projects, he works to co-create spaces for collaboration, active participation, and the exchange of cultural knowledge. Patrick received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and spent two years living in Cairo, Egypt before moving to New York City in 2010. He finished his Masters of Fine Art and Masters in Art and Design Education at Pratt Institute 2014. www.mobileprintpower.com

Clara Amenyo

Clara was the Program Manager for CUP’s Public Access Design program from 2012 to 2014. Before coming to CUP, she worked in Structured Credit for Barclays Capital. Clara has a Bachelor of the Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Joshua Graver

Joshua Graver is a Brooklyn-based graphic designer that focuses on art direction, branding, motion graphics, print and web design, soundtracking, and problem solving. He enjoys the company of family, friends, and house plants; and he is passionate about social and environmental justice. joshuagraver.com

Joshua was a 2013-2014 Public Access Design Fellow and worked on Shifty Business.

Maxwell Sorensen

Maxwell Sorensen is a Brooklyn- and sometimes Philadelphia-based director and animator specializing in stop-motion animation, traditional puppetry, and a handmade aesthetic. His work has been featured on MTV2, MTVU,FUSE, as an official selection at SXSW, and on small screens across the globe. He has experience as a stop-motion animator and as a digital motion graphics artist working in Adobe After Effects. maxwellsorensen.com

Maxwell was a 2013-2014 Public Access Design Fellow and worked on Shifty Business.

Ingrid Haftel

Ingrid was the Community Education Program Director for CUP. Before CUP, she was Curator of Exhibitions at the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), Chicago’s leading forum for the exchange of ideas on urban design. While at CAF, Ingrid developed major exhibitions that helped public audiences think critically about complex issues related to urban planning and architecture. Ingrid received her B.A. in English and Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, and her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago.

Deja Holden

Deja was the Design Assistant at CUP. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design in Communication Design and her BA from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in Political Science. She is interested in design as a tool for demystifing public policy, and its role as a vehicle for broader civic engagement. 

Nick Johnson

Nick Johnson is a Brooklyn based Graphic Designer and former CUP Fellow for Change in Design. Originally from Detroit Michigan, Nick Studied at Western Michigan University where he received his BFA in Graphic Design. Nick moved to New York in pursuit of new skills, challenges, and experience in order to better prepare him for helping to solve complex problems in all capacities as both a designer and community member.