Yasmin Ali

Yasmin is a recent graduate from College for Creative Studies and is a graphic designer currently based in Brooklyn. She is interested in using design as a tool to examine questions pertaining to race, gender identity, and the other complex systems we live within.

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. 

Agustín Cepeda

Agustín is a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. Agustín has always been passionate about art and design: how it can embody care, spark joy, suspend time. He renovated homes for a living before understanding that what he loves the most about design is its capacity to bring people together in shared knowledge around a common goal. Shifting the goal from buildings to social justice led him to CUP! Agustín holds a Bachelor of Architecture (University of Texas at Austin) and a Master’s in City Planning (MIT). Outside of CUP he’s probably working on design projects with friends and family.

Genea Foster

Genea is a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. Genea is a Brooklyn native, whose Afro-Caribbean ancestry has shaped their deep commitment to social justice. Genea is passionate about popular education as a tool for transformative action and building power in communities at the frontlines of systemic oppression. As an urban planner and organizer, Genea has worked with youth, communities of color, and municipalities towards environmental justice, climate resiliency, health equity, and food sovereignty. Genea holds a Master’s in City Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College. Outside of work, Genea can be found veganizing recipes, talking about a just transition, and dreaming about returning to the land.

Ro Garrido

Ro Garrido is a Youth Education Program Coordinator at CUP. Ro was born in Lima, Peru and grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. Ro is a self-taught, multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work grapples with memory and intimacy. They work with mixed media, sculpture, fiber, archives, installation and community engagment. Ro’s work has been featured at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, Goddard College, and Flux Factory. Ro was a 2014 Create Change Fellow and 2016 Commissioned Artist with The Laundromat Project. Ro is currently a 2018-19 Engaging Artists Fellow at More Art and a 2019-20 Artist in Residence at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Ro has a BA in Individualized Studies with a focus on Visual Art and Mental Health from Goddard College.

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.