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.

Tim Lahan

Tim Lahan is an artist and illustrator living and working Pennsylvania. He won first place for the long jump in the eighth grade and failed gym class twice in high school. Tim was an illustrator for the Health Insurance in New York State MPP.

Other Means

Other Means is a graphic design studio in New York City founded in 2012 by Gary Fogelson, Phil Lubliner, Ryan Waller, and Vance Wellenstein. They work primarily with clients in the cultural sector.

In addition to their client work they teach in the graduate and undergraduate communication design departments at Pratt Institute; co-run Primetime, a non-commercial exhibition space in Brooklyn; co-run Typography Summer School New York, an annual, week-long intensive workshop and lecture program; and produce their own publications, typefaces, and objects that investigate their interests in language, and design’s relationship with popular culture.

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.

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.

James Whitman

James Whitman (b. 1976) makes drawings, artist’s books, and sometimes other things. He has worked with such amazing collaborators as The Lions, Barry Doupe, Owen Plummer and Perro Verlag. Most recently he has made a set of linocuts for Lubok Verlag (Leipzig, Germany), made the artist’s book Behead, Roll, Tell with Courtney Burke, and worked as a teaching artist with the Center For Urban Pedagogy (NYC). He holds an MFA in studio arts from Concordia University, Montreal where he studied under Eleanor Bond, and currently lives in Queens, NY.

Gabe Gordon

Gabe Gordon grew up far-sighted in Cleveland, Ohio. Fascinated by postal systems and mail objects, Gabe’s work and writing circulate around the art and politics of correspondence. As a Teaching Artist, Gabe has been lucky to work collaboratively on projects with children and teenagers of all ages across New York City, Western Massachusetts, and Detroit, Michigan. xxgg.work

Jenn Anne Williams

Jenn was CUP’s Youth Education Program Manager. With a strong belief that all youths deserve equitable access to the arts, Jenn has developed inclusive programs, published curriculum guides, and trained educators in how to use the arts as a tool for understanding, development, and social change with over 100 New York City public schools and community based organizations.  Jenn continues her pursuit of art as a tool for empowerment as a practicing artist, designer, educator, and administrator implementing high-quality, interdisciplinary art programs. You can follow her creative pursuits at artjawdesigns.com.

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Stephen Kwok

Stephen Kwok makes live performance, experimental events, and installations. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. He was an artist-in-residence at Delfina Foundation’s Performance as Process Programme in London, and has exhibited his work at Haus der Kulteren der Welt (HKW), The Center for Performance Research, American Medium, Julius Caesar, Chicago Cultural Center, Gene Siskel Film Center, and the Lawndale Art Center in Houston.

13 milliseconds

13 milliseconds is the fastest time it takes for your brain to process an image. It is also the creative studio run by Sharon Bach and Francois Huyghe. Coming from California and France, the two met in New York and have been working together on a range of projects in print, interactive, motion, and web design. They now live and work in Austin.

Clair Beltran

Clair Beltran is CUP’s Program Coordinator and is also a former intern. She is a recent graduate of Middlebury College where she studied Architecture and Geography. She is interested in the intersections between sociology and design and how different people experience space. Having spent the past 5 years in Vermont, she is excited and overwhelmed at being back in her hometown of New York City and relearning what it has to offer. 

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.

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.

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.

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.