Our students’ commitment to academic and professional growth is truly outstanding, a gift during this turbulent time. Of particular note are some garnering major recognitions: Shannon Hui as the 2023-24 Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) / Morgan Stanley Community Development Fellow. Three students are working with community boards through the Community Planning Fellowship offered by the Fund for the City of New York (Ana Maria Arpi, Soda Bizimana, and Nina Farahanchi). The URBAN Magazine has received the Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals presented by AIA New York’s Center for Architecture in recognition of the issue Fluidity (developed by the 2022-2023 editorial team and contributors). Representing Region 1, first-year student Mateo Alexander has been serving on the Student Representatives Council Executive Committee of the American Planning Association.

A key feature of our curriculum is the breadth and flexibility offered to students in pursuing their broad interests. As an accredited degree program – by the Planning Accreditation Board (PAB) – the release of PAB new standards at the end of 2022 has provided an opportunity for curriculum review. The new standards require programs to fully address issues related to planning institutions, urban technologies, and equity and social justice in global context. Starting in academic year 2024-25, two new required courses will further highlight our program’s long-standing focus on social justice as the motivating value in the planning process across different spatial scales of urban change, as well as our increasing strength in critical applications of urban technologies and their intersections with planning institutions. In addition, to retain the function of the current concentrations but also to stay responsive to critical issues of our time, we will instead use a more agile structure in the form of curriculum clusters. Each cluster will be a group of related electives, similar to current concentration courses; presenting a set of clusters to students each semester during registration periods will continue to help students choose electives. More details are available on this page (scroll towards the bottom).

Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!
Weiping

We are grateful to Visiting Assistant Professor Jonathan Stiles for joining our program this academic year. With expertise in civic applications of digital technologies and sustainable transportation systems. Jon is advising theses and capstone projects, in addition to teaching the required GIS course in the Fall and a Urban Planning Studio and Explore Urban Data with Machine Learning in the Spring. A warm welcome to Gayatri Kawlra, Jessica Katz, and James Piacentini as our program’s new adjunct faculty.

Three new electives will be offered in the Spring semester:

Prototyping in Urban Tech: Project, Product + People (1.5 pts and offered in Session B), James Piacentini

This course aims to reframe the practice of urban data research and visualization toward a user-centric model. Users (people) generate the need for a tool (product) that derives from and drives forward our research (project). Students will design interactive digital product prototypes such as apps, web-based maps, dashboards, or other interactive digital data tools to showcase their analytics and visualizations to the public. Throughout the course, we will ground our projects in a service-oriented lens, asking who will benefit from our research and how we can put this information in their hands. No prior software knowledge is required and students will learn how to use these in the course.

Reimagine the City with Web 3.0, Gayatri Kawlra

This course delves into the democratizing potential of an alternative Internet paradigm, Web 3.0, which advocates for the adoption of “trustless” consensus-building mechanisms, investigating their potential to foster transparent, privacy-preserving, and participatory urban landscapes. It will begin with a study of the fundamentals of distributed systems and cryptography, highlighting their significance for securing digital identities, privacy, and control over personal data. We will then explore how blockchain and distributed ledger technology are impacting areas of city governance, civic engagement, urban services, land ownership, and more. Special emphasis will be placed on the unique capabilities of the Ethereum network. Next we will analyze specific applications beyond traditional use-cases, with a particular focus on smart contracts, tokenization of physical assets, decentralized digital urban governance, and distributed resource management systems. To conclude, the course will examine the legal, regulatory, and societal implications of the paradigm shift towards decentralized, blockchain-based urban systems.

Urban Political Ecology and the Climate Crisis, Hugo Sarmiento

This course is focused on a set of analytic perspectives and theories associated with urban political ecology. Topics include political ecology, social-ecological transitions, resilience theory and emerging views on climate urbanism. These topics will be explored through current debates and their application to cases of urban policy and planning practice in a global context. It is a reading-intensive exploration of politics, broadly defined, and of natures, as they relate to environmental ideologies and forms of governance. These theoretical frameworks will allow students to synthesize empirical observations in ways that inform their understanding of the contemporary evolution of climate and environmental policy and planning practice. The course reviews the evolution of environmental thinking in planning and examines new conceptual paradigms triggered by intensive urbanizations, social inequality, conflict, displacement, biodiversity and climate change, and evolution of new environmental practices.

We have an exciting line-up of studios scheduled for Spring 2024 on a wide variety of topics on three continents. These studios include:

• Section 001: Home in Lenapehoking: Continuing the Lenape Presence in New York City, Anthony Borelli & Sybil Wa
  
• Section 002: Greater Manchester Resilience Studio, Ebru Gencer & Jonathan Stiles
  
• Section 003: Urban & Civic Activation of Asuncion Historic District: Learning from the Global South in the Heart of Latin American, Jose Luis Vallejo & Ryan Devlin
  
• Section 004: Adapting & Preserving Coney Island, Matthew Bauer & Ali Estefam
  
• Section 005: Overgrown Undergrowth (East Flatbush, Brooklyn): Adam Lubinsky & Calvin Brown (Joint RED/Planning)
  

Lisa Blake recently participated in an alumni panel at New York City Emergency Management, where she discussed best practices in the field of emergency management and in hazard mitigation. She will also be moderating a panel at the upcoming APA NY Metro Chapter Conference, entitled: Taking Hazard Mitigation Projects One Step Further.

Hiba Bou Akar led the organization of The Migrant “Crisis" in NYC: Immigration, Asylum, and The Right to the City conference this fall. The conference brought together a diverse array of academics, experts, activists, urban stakeholders, and individuals with personal experiences and knowledge to help attendees better understand the current dynamics of immigrants arriving in New York City. The conference focused on questions related to the built environment and the experiences and rights of immigrants and asylum seekers in accessing housing and claiming space within the city. Read more about the conference in this feature from the Columbia Spectator.

Kate Dunham has been invited to give the final lecture of the Future by Design series at the NYIT School of Architecture and Design on December 7, 2023. The title of the lecture is “The Urban Design Game: Rethinking the Rules for Designing Cities in an Ai-informed World.” She will be presenting the lecture jointly with Silvia Vercher (GSAPP Urban Design alumni and NYIT professor).

Ebru Gencer was a panelist at Turkey and Syria After the Earthquakes: Building Back Better session at the American Institute of Architects’ Center for Architecture in NY this fall. Her chapter on “Cultural Heritage and Urbanizati on on in the Context of Disaster Risk Management in Istanbul” as part of the Routledge Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Management is coming out in December 2023.

James Piacentini (M.S. UP ‘20/M.Arch '20) is presenting at the Spatial Justice in Practice Symposium at TU Delft on December 1, 2023. He is presenting research on the Equitable Development Data Explorer, a first-of-its-kind racial equity and displacement map for New York City developed by the Department of City Planning, Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Racial Impact Study Coalition (RISC).

Hugo Sarmiento discussed his climate research and experience teaching at GSAPP in an interview featured in Columbia News. The interview highlighted his current research, motivations, and favorite aspects of teaching at GSAPP. Professor Sarmiento’s research examines the relationships between planning for climate change, natural disasters, and spatial inequalities such as housing deficits, poor infrastructure, and racial segregation. Specifically, he considers how these inequalities contribute to the social production of risk and vulnerability.

Traveling in Asia at the end of summer, Weiping Wu was a plenary speaker at Reinventing Destiny in Singapore – A Conference on the Occasion of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s 100th Birth Anniversary – and the International Conference on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Development in Global South in New Delhi. Since September, she has been Columbia’s Vice Provost for Academic Programs, and she and her colleagues in the office are responsible for overseeing the University’s academic programs and educational partnerships, and for leading the University’s accreditation process.

In July 2023, URBAN Magazine received the Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals presented by AIA New York’s Center for Architecture in recognition of Vol. 32. Please join us in congratulating the 2022-2023 editorial team and contributors. Each academic term, URBAN is created, edited, and published by students of GSAPP’s Urban Planning program. This year, the magazine celebrates its 25th anniversary by releasing a single issue. URBAN’s Vol. 34, to be released later this spring, will feature writing, interviews, photo essays, and other work related to urban planning and city living from our students and peers. This year’s Senior Editors are Ethan Floyd (Outreach), Olivia Jia (Design), and Felipe Urrutia (Content). This year’s Junior Editors are Jane Cole, Donatella Donato, Steven Duncan, Ruju Joshi, Jaron Kaplan, Olivia McCloy, Tharika Raman, Saumil Sanghavi, and Yuting Sun. Keep an eye out for updates on the forthcoming issue and for a save-the-date announcement to celebrate URBAN’s 25th anniversary! To continue the conversation, follow URBAN Magazine on Instagram @columbiaurbanmag and read last semester’s Vol. 33 online.

Urban Planning Program Council welcomed Riley Chan, Jane Cole, and Steven Duncan who were selected as the First-Year Program Council Representatives. They joined Aroosa Ajani, Andrew Cronson, Ethan Floyd, and Shannon Hui who are the Second-Year Program Council Representatives. Together, they attended monthly faculty meetings to provide student input and perspective. At the beginning of the semester, the Program Council hosted the Welcome Picnic in Central Park - a chance for incoming students to hangout with second years as classes got underway, as well as the annual UP Thanksgiving Dinner this November.

Urban China Network hosted the 10th Annual Urban China Forum with the theme Transformations & Opportunities of Urban Planning in China in Recent Decades which recorded over 7000 virtual attendees globally over the two days and streamed through the Columbia Global Centers (Beijing) WeChat Platform. Students had a chance to hear distinguished scholars from Tongji University, the University at Albany, SUNY, the University of Michigan, and Tufts University speak on topics of territorial spatial planning, big data, and real estate development. Big thanks to the efforts of our Presidents: Wei Xiao (M.S. UP and M.Arch 24’); Communication Officer, Zhiyang Chen (M.S. UP ’24); Design Officer, Kelly He (M.Arch 24’); Media Officer, Yuan He (M.S. UP ’25).

Mariam Aref Mahmoud (M.S. UP ‘24) won second place in the sixth annual Avery Review Essay Prize, which celebrates students’ critical writing on architecture. Mariam’s essay unravels the development of neoliberal and global forces at work along Cairo’s Ring Road and reviews Egypt’s modernization schemes across its political regimes, exposing the making of a housing crisis that continues to displace working-class communities.

Ana Maria Arpi (M.S. UP ‘24) is a Community Planning Fellow for the Fund for the City of New York. She is working with Queens Community Board 1 on a project that strives to evaluate the current state and future impact of zoning changes and new development on Northern Boulevard, located between Long Island City and Astoria. Her research encourages economic development in this vibrant boulevard while proposing strategies to protect the historical communities and longstanding industrial businesses in Astoria and LIC. Additionally, as a Real Estate Development Intern at Vaya Development, Ana Maria is working on the Harlem PACT project that focuses on preserving affordable housing NYCHA developments to enhance residents’ living conditions and provide on-site social services and community programs to uplift the entire community.

Stefan Chavez-Norgaard (PhD Candidate) is currently based in Cambridge, MA. He is working as an in-resident scholar with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, supporting the Institute’s work in Africa, and as a Democracy Visiting Fellow with the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Stefan misses New York and Columbia GSAPP, and is looking forward to returning to campus in Spring 2024 to TA the UP Planning Law course.

Nina Farahanchi (M.S. UP'24) has had an incredible time this semester as a Community Planning Fellow at the Fund for the City of New York. Through this fellowship, Nina was paired with Community Board 11 in East Harlem where she has had the opportunity to bring her education about affordable housing finance and data analysis to work on projects for the CB. She’s working on an affordable housing stock report for East Harlem as well as an affordable housing finance workshop to further educate dedicated community board members. Using her planning education for capacity building in such a dynamic neighborhood has been a blast!

Diana Guo (PhD student, Urban Planning) was selected as one of ten scholars to attend the Norman Foster Foundation 2023 Sustainable Cities workshop in Madrid, Spain, where she exchanged ideas with Norman Foster, Maya Lin, Nina-Marie Lister, Mario Cucinella, Peter Vangsbo (ARUP), and Julia Czerniak.

Olivia Jia (M.S. UP ’24) is interning with WXY’s urban planning team in NYC this semester. At WXY, she is working on a neighborhood planning process in Long Island City, designing engagement materials and researching past planning efforts to inform a more community-led planning process. Her capstone project with Gehl explores opportunities for NYC’s privately owned public spaces in areas prime for office to residential conversions that can incorporate new design, programmatic, and operational decisions to become higher functioning public spaces as business districts transition to become more mixed-use, complete neighborhoods.

Luke McNamera (M.S. UP ‘24) continued his internship at the Regional Plan Association this fall. He has learned about the role of non-profits and advocacy in project planning and implementation, as well as the logistics of freight movement and how e-commerce is impacting our supply chains. In addition, Luke has had the opportunity to conduct numerous site visits, including to Red Hook Container Terminal.

Chelsea Mullen (M.S. UP ‘24) continued her summer internship with Karp Strategies in the fall semester. As a graduate analyst, she works on a range of client-based projects focused on promoting equitable and inclusive community and economic development in New York City. Her current projects include implementing a stakeholder engagement plan for a large-scale infrastructure project, developing a mission-driven real estate strategy for a community foundation, and conducting an economic impact analysis for a transit-oriented development project.

Lance Punay (M.S. UP ‘24) is currently working as the Urban Planning & Design Intern at Stantec’s New York office. His work centers around mobility planning and urban design, particularly in terms of designing streets, crafting visualizations, and preparing reports for various Complete Streets projects across the United States. Additionally, he has worked on conducting research and designing graphics for a resilience hub project and climate change design guidelines in New York and Hawaii respectively.

Kavyaa Rizal (M.S. UP ‘24) is a GIS and Data Fellow at Bloomberg Associates. Her work involves supporting the sustainability team in working with civic clients in projects associated with climate resilience, decarbonization and sustainability.

For one of three office visits this semester, HR&A hosted our group and reviewed their varied planning efforts with us. We are grateful to alumni who helped organize the visit for us and shared their projects:

Kirthi Balakrishnan, MSUP ‘23
Sori Han, MSUP ‘22
Hilary Ho, MSUP ‘23
Laura Semeraro, MSUP ‘19

We are also grateful to Two Bridges Neighborhood Council and WXY for hosting office visits earlier in the semester.

Now in our second year of operation, Career Services provides one-on-one advising and workshops on career-related topics, including cover letters and resumes, how to get a job, internships, interviewing tips (and mock interviews), salary negotiations, and portfolio reviews. Career Services also runs a very active mentorship program, an Alumni/Student Networking Mixer each semester, and, with other GSAPP programs, co-sponsors the Career Fair every year in February and fills the GSAPP Job Board—Gateway—with internship and job opportunities.

Alyana Acacio, International Fellows, SIPA
Ana Maria Arpi, FCNY Community Planning Fellows
Soda Bizmana, FCNY Community Planning Fellows (M CB5)
Cap Chesnier, Louis Vuitton
Donatella Donato, EDC
Nina Faranachi, FCNY Community Planning Fellows
Shannon Hui, ANHD/Morgan Stanley Community Development Fellows (Cooper Square)
Olivia Jia, WXY
Claudia Kohn, DUMBO BID
Lance McNamara, RPA
Fukunda Mbaru, Brooklyn Museum
Chelsea Mullen, Karp Strategies
Lance Punay, Stantec
Kavyaa Rizal, Bloomberg
Kevin Tang, Two Bridges Neighborhood Council
Jade Wang, SageArk, LLC
Eric Xia, Garment District BID
Annika Yu, Brookings Institute
Ronnie Zhu, Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation

Ali Estefam, MSUP ’20, has been promoted to Urban Planner, Deputy Outreach Manager at AECOM.

Joy Huang, MSUP ’20, is now Director of Real Estate and Planning at the Empire State Development Corporation.

Radhika Patel, MSUP ’21, is Chief Operating Officer at Columbia’s Data Science Institute

Steven Romalewski, MSUP ’98, Director of CUNY Mapping Service, is celebrating 18 years at CUNY.

Kovid Saxena, MSUP ’04, AICP and, LEED AP, ENV SP at Sam Schwartz, has been named National Director, Environmental Planning, and to the Board of Directors.

Sonal Shah, MSUP ’21, Founder of Urban Catalysts, co-designed a Knowledge Sharing and Training on Advancing a Transformative Agenda for Gender Equality in the Transport, Water and Urban Development Sectors at the Asian Development Bank on 2-3 November 2023. The workshop was attended by senior sector specialists across Asia.

Yifei (Felix) Zhou, MSUP ’22, is now working on his MBA at Hong Kong University.

We would love to hear from alumni on their progress. Please fill out this form to let us know how you’re doing: Alumni Form.

And don’t forget to SAVE THE DATE for the UP reception, Saturday, April 13, 2024 at the APA National Conference in Minneapolis! More details forthcoming.

We would like to thank the alumni who attended the Alumni/Student Networking Event at Row House at Harlem in November and shared their experiences with our current students:

• Sarah Abdallah, MSUP ’23, BID Consultant, Two Bridges
  
• Christian Budow, MSUP ’23, Hatch
  
• Tomas Carillo, MSUP ’23, Florida Atlantic University
  
• Kevin Costa, MSUP ’23, Consultant
  
• Ubaldo Escalante, MSUP ’17, Buro Happold
  
• Ali Estefam, MSUP ’20, Urban Planner, Deputy Outreach Manager, AECOM
  
• Emily Junker, MSUP ’22, Planner, BFJ
  
• Margaret Hanson, MSUP ’23, Public Works Partners
  
• Calvin Harrison, MSUP ‘23, EnDev
  
• Victoria Lin, MSUP ‘23, Planner, AALDEF
  
• Mollye Liu, MSUP ‘23, Assistant Project Manager, Bronx Pro
  
• Rob Sanchez, MSUP ‘23, Planner, NYC Department of Parks
  
• Eshti Sookram, MSUP ‘23, Planner, BFJ
  
• Mauricio Rada, MSUP ’22, PhD student at Columbia
  
• Justin Romeo, MSUP ’18, Director of Special Projects, NYC DOT
  
• Sofia Vala, MSUP ’23, Planner, RPA
  

We would also like to thank the alumni listed below for participating in our UP Mentorship Program this year. For more information about the program, please contact Douglas Woodward at dw38@columbia.edu.

• Justin Barton, MSUP ’21, Assistant Project Director, WinnCompanies
  
• Matt Bauer, MSUP ’12, President, Madison Avenue BID; Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia GSAPP Urban Planning
  
• Anthony Borelli, MSUP ’96, Senior VP of Planning and Development, Edison Properties; Adjunct Associate Professor, UP
  
• Alanna Browdy, MSUP ’20, Strategist, Gensler
  
• Riley Burchell, MSUP ’21, Project Manager, L+M Development Partners LLC.
  
• Tina Chiu, MSUP ’96, former Deputy Director, NYC Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health
  
• Rebecca Cook, MSUP ’20, Project Manager, Gehl
  
• Tim Douglas, MSUP ’16, Planner III, STV
  
• Eri Furusawa, MSUP ’18, Director, HR&A
  
• Kate Galbo, MSUP ’20, Climate Action Planning Manager, KLA (Kim Lundgren Associates)
  
• Steven Getz, MSUP ’17, Head of Production, Community Preservation Corp.
  
• Tara Heidger, MSUP ’19, Managing Director, M&C Saatchi World Services
  
• Yi Jiang, MSUP ’18 and M.Arch ’21, Intermediate Designer, SOM
  
• Tatiana Kopelman, MSUP ’18, Housing and Urban Development Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank
  
• Nick Kunz, MSUP ’19, Senior Data Scientist, Deloitte
  
• Geon Woo Lee, MSUP ’21, Senior Analyst, HR&A
  
• Elizabeth Marcello, MIA ’10, PhD ’20, Doctoral Lecturer, The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College
  
• Jonathan Marty, MSUP ’22, PhD Student, University of California, Berkeley
  
• Jessica Mathew, MSUP ’15, Senior Advisor, Special Projects and Initiatives, MTA
  
• Brady Meixell, MSUP ’22, Government Services & Business Services Manager, SW Brooklyn Industrial Corp.
  
• Michael Montilla, MSUP ’19, PhD Student, University of California, Berkeley
  
• Heather Roiter, MSUP ’07, Assistant Commissioner, Risk Reduction & Management, NYC Emergency Management
  
• James Piacentini, MSUP & M.Arch ’20, Product Manager, Digital Services, NYC DCP; Adjunct Assistant Professor, UP
  
• Charlie Romanow, MSUP ’18, Transportation Planner, WSP
  
• Justin Romeo, MSUP ’18, Director of Special Projects, NYC DOT
  
• Josh Saal, MSUP ’13, Housing and Community Planning Consultant
  
• Stephanie Shelloe, ’13, Director, Environmental Division, NYC DCP
  
• Ron Slangen, MSUP ’05, Deputy Country Director, Asian Development Bank
  
• Howard Slatkin, MSUP ’00, Executive Director, Citizens Housing & Planning Council; Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia GSAPP Urban Planning
  
• Erik Strand, MSUP ’22, Analyst, Karp Strategies
• Marla Weinstein, MSUP ’13,Urban Planner, Google
  
• Savannah Wu, MSUP ’20, Development Manager, Northeast Region, Reactivate
  
• Claire Yang, MSUP ’20, Chief of Staff, Silicon Harlem
  

Many thanks also to those alumni who volunteered this year but whom we were unable to match this time around, including Melissa Bindra, MRED/MSUP ’18; Lisa Blake, MSUP ’12; Tyrene Calvasbert, MSUP ’19; Naomi Hersson-Ringskog, MSUP ’09; Matt Schwartz, MSUP ’09.