Lara Belkind holds Masters degrees in Architecture and in Urban Planning from Harvard University. From 2000–2004 she created urban design and redevelopment plans for downtown Washington DC as an Economic Revitalization Planner with the Government of the District of Columbia. Previously, she worked on urban initiatives in the Manhattan Office of the New York Department of City Planning, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone in Harlem, and the 42nd Street Development Project, Inc. As a Fulbright Scholar, she studied Paris’s Hôtels Industriels program, a design and policy effort to retain small industries in working class districts. Her current research focuses on policy attempts to promote social and spatial diversity in global cities.

[ lbelkind@fas.harvard.edu ]

Sai Balakrishnan completed her Bachelor of Architecture in India and holds a Masters in Urban Design from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Masters in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has worked as an architect for Balakrishna Doshi (India), as an urban designer in the UAE, and as an urban planning student researcher at UN-HABITAT, Kenya and the local municipality of Durban, South Africa. Her research interests are in theories of justice and property rights in developing countries, particularly on land rights and land assembly.

[ sbalakr@fas.harvard.edu ]

Anna Bergren studies the built environment of the American state. Her current research examines the planning and architecture of stateside army camps as both evidence of and instruments in the twentieth-century transformation of the United States military.

Anna recently graduated from MIT with a BS in mathematics and a concentration in urban history. While at Harvard, she has been a teaching fellow for both the Graduate School of Design and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In Spring 2006, she received a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

When not in the classroom, the library, or an archive, Anna can most often be found outdoors, biking or hiking. She also enjoys cooking, reading mysteries, and supporting the Washington Capitals.

[ abergren@fas.harvard.edu ]

Álex Bueno holds a BA in Art History from Princeton University. His current research is centered around urbanization and technology in the modern city and its representation in popular media such as film, literature and video games in the Japanese context. He is interested in the use of material culture for the expression of perceptions of history and place. Previously, he has studied the Paradores de Turismo de España and their development as concretizations of certain views of Spanish history over the course of the twentieth century. He is also an avid photographer and uses it whenever possible as a documentary and interpretive tool in his research.

[ bueno@fas.harvard.edu ]

Peter Christensen's research centers on the practice and historiography of geopolitics as a discrete field since the turn of the twentieth century and its implications on spatial practices with particular interest in the borders of Islamic and Judeo-Christian civilizations. He also researches the museology of architecture and the critical practices of connoisseurship. His Masters thesis analyzed Post-World War I custodianship of Armenian ecclesiastic architecture under Kemalist political policy in modern Turkey. Prior to coming to Harvard, Peter served as Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (2005-2008) where, among other curatorial projects, he co-organized Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling with Barry Bergdoll. Peter has received numerous awards and grants including the Lee Tenenbaum Award from MoMA and the Eidlitz Fellowship from Cornell University. Peter co- authored Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling (2008). Peter has lectured and further published nationally and internationally. Peter holds a professional Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Design Studies in the History and Theory of Architecture, with distinction, from Harvard. Peter is an affiliate of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard.

[ pchrist@fas.harvard.edu ]

Jana Cephas is a designer and community activist researching urban landscapes and the role of the body as the figurative joint between architectural construction and the construal of social identity. Building upon her previous work on the cultural geography of informal economy networks operating within marginalized landscapes, Jana is currently interested in ethnographies of modern subjectivity, the architectonics of class conflicts and the social organization of work. She received her MArch degree from the University of Detroit Mercy. Prior to attending Harvard, Jana was a Design Fellow at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center where she designed and managed building projects for low-income communities.

[ jcephas@fas.harvard.edu ]

Kenny Cupers holds a professional degree in Architectural Engineering (KULeuven, Belgium) and an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures (Goldsmiths College, London), and has worked as an architect and urban designer in Berlin and London. He is the author of Spaces of Uncertainty (with M. Miessen, Verlag Müller + Busmann, 2002), a study that advances the discourse on the contemporary public sphere through an investigation of residual space in Berlin. Broadly stated, his interests are in the social and cultural dimensions of architecture and the city, and in particular the agency of everyday users on the built environment. His dissertation research is on postwar housing in France.

[ cupers@fas.harvard.edu ] [ http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~cupers/ ]

Aliki Economides holds a professional B.Arch (University of Toronto), and Masters degrees in the History and Theory of Architecture (McGill University) and the History of Science (Harvard). Her research explores points of intersection between architecture, the history of science and technology, and conceptions and representations of nature in the early modern and modern periods. Prior to coming to Harvard, Aliki worked in practice, taught, and served as Coordinator for the Visiting Scholars Program of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and the Institut de recherche en histoire de l’architecture (IRHA).

[ economid@fas.harvard.edu ]

Brian Goldstein is interested in the history of large-scale government intervention in the built environment, particularly in the United States in the 20th century. He previously worked in the U.S. General Services Administration's Office of the Chief Architect, where from 2004-2007 he coordinated federal building projects with local municipalities and managed a program concerned with renovating interior and exterior public spaces in modern-era buildings. He holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University, where he co-curated "VAC BOS: The Carpenter Center and Le Corbusier's Synthese des Arts," an exhibition marking the fortieth anniversary of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

[ bgoldst@fas.harvard.edu ]

Max Hirsh studies the relationship between mobility and the built environment. He has written on a variety of topics, including airport design, urban redevelopment, East German postmodernism, and architectural strategies designed to attract skilled migrants. He holds a BA from Harvard and an MA from the Technical University of Berlin; and has received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, the Krupp Foundation, and the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2008–2009, Max will be a Guest Lecturer at the Harvard Design School and an Affiliate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

[ hirsh@fas.harvard.edu ]

Ateya Khorakiwala is a recent graduate of the Masters Program in Architectural Studies at HTC, MIT, prior to which she studied architecture at KRVIA in Mumbai, an institute that she continues to visit and conduct workshops at, the most recent of which was about writing manifestos. The strength of her studio work is in making interventions in dense urban fabrics, mapping and diagramming cities for projects. In spring 2009 she worked for Joan Jonas, as a teaching-assistant for her performance workshop, An Archeology of the Deep Sea. In She was part of the team that organized HTC’s annual student conference, “Research-in-Progress 09: What Site?” At MIT, she wrote her master’s thesis on road research in India, c. 1960. Her thesis tackled the difficulties faced by the postcolonial nation-state to be modern. This will to modernity was couched within a technological discourse that emerged in the research conducted to design and produce infrastructure, which used indigenous materials and methods.

[ akhoraki@fas.harvard.edu ]

Seng Kuan received a BA in Social Studies from Harvard University and studied in the urban planning and architecture programs at the GSD. His primary field is architectural history in modern China and Japan, and he is currently focusing on Shanghai’s urbanism and on the early works of Kenzo Tange.

[ kuan@fas.harvard.edu ]

Jennifer Mack focuses on public space and immigration and is also affiliated with the social anthropology department. Her dissertation explores how a Swedish suburb has become the global capital of a Middle Eastern diaspora, specifically examining the urban designs and practices of both government planners and residents. Jennifer has previously investigated football fandom, internet cafés as community centers, transitional housing for refugees, and the spatial experiences of factory workers in a free trade zone. She received an MArch and an MCP from MIT and a BA in art history from Wesleyan University and has worked as an architectural and urban designer in Boston and Barcelona.

[ jmack@fas.harvard.edu ]

Mariana Mogilevich works on the cultural history of urbanism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, she is interested in urban landscapes, preservation, monuments, symbols, and the role of visual images in urban change in the United States and Latin America. Her dissertation “The Architecture of Urban Crisis: Design Culture and Politics in New York City, 1965-74” investigates the forgotten landscape and aspirations of the city in the era after Robert Moses and before the money ran out. Mariana holds a BA in Literature from Yale University and an MA from Harvard.

[ mogilev@fas.harvard.edu ]

W. Elysse Newman is a PhD candidate. Her interests are in psychology and cognition, the philosophy of aesthetics and representation, and the history of technology. She worked in architectural practice in Texas, Illinois, Washington DC, London, St. Louis and taught at the University of Tennessee and Harvard. She has a BS and BArch from the University of Texas at Austin and a MArch and MPhil from Harvard. Elysse currently teaches at Washington University in St. Louis and is a partner in Field Office Research and Design. She co-edits for the e-zine Ecumene and sits on the Editorial board of the Journal of Architectural Education. Dissertation title: “Imaginative Beholding: Heinrich Wölfflin, German Physiological Psychology and the Discourse on Representation in Fin-de-Siècle Germany.” Dissertation committee: Antoine Picon (Architecture), K. Michael Hays (Architecture), Alina Payne (History of Art and Architecture), Peter Galison (History of Science).

[ newman@fas.harvard.edu ]

Jason Nguyen is a PhD student whose interests focus on the international transmission and commercialization of the visual and cultural arts in the decades surrounding World War II. In particular, he studies how the philosophical and aesthetic ideologies of European Modernism, especially those of the early twentieth century avant-gardes, were implemented in the capitalist milieu of the United States. In addition, he is an editor of and contributor to Manifold Magazine, a journal of architectural theory that responds to “Post-Criticality” by seeking new grounds for theoretical inquiry that supersede the traditional constructions of “critical” thought while providing a forum for philosophical and sociopolitical analysis. In 2009, he published and presented “Retail Value: Culture, Consumerism, and the Architectural Diagram” at the ACSA Annual Meeting. This inquiry sought an historical and theoretical understanding of the relationship between consumerism and the spatial organization of several twentieth century retail models. Trained as an architect, Jason received his BArch from Drexel University. In 2007, he joined the faculty at Drexel where he taught courses on Visionary Architecture from 1750–present. From 2003 to 2009, he practiced with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.

[ jenguyen@fas.harvard.edu ]

Sun-Young Park holds a BA in Architecture from Princeton University and recently completed her MArch at the Harvard GSD, where her thesis explored ways of reconstituting place and cultural landscape in nations facing extinction due to rising sea levels. She is interested in 18th and 19th century French urbanism and social history, particularly in the construction of modern subjectivity, memory, and identity through the urban landscape.

[ sypark@fas.harvard.edu ]

Diana Ramirez Jasso holds a Masters degree in the History, Theory and Criticism of Art and Architecture from MIT and a professional degree in architecture from the ITESO, Mexico. Her studies focus on the points of convergence between philosophical and architectural discourse, with particular emphasis on the concept of architectural type as it relates to discourses on subjectivity. Diana's current research investigates spaces for children in 19th century Europe in relation to Enlightenment theories of public and private space. Advisors: Michael Hays (Architecture), Eve Blau (Architecture), Peter Gordon (History).

[ ramirez@fas.harvard.edu ]

Bill Rankin is dually enrolled in the architecture program and the history of science department. He is interested in scientific representation, the history of geography and cartography, bureaucracies of science and architecture, laboratory design, and the history of engineering. Bill holds a BA (Architecture & Civil Engineering) and a BArch, both from Rice University. Dissertation title: "The Invention of Infrastructure: Measurement, Mapping, and Global Development, 1860-1930." Dissertation committee: Antoine Picon (Architecture), Peter Galison (History of Science), Mario Biagioli (History of Science), and Sven Beckert (History).

[ wrankin@fas.harvard.edu ]

Chris Rogacz is arriving at the GSD from an eclectic academic background. While an undergraduate, he initially intended to major in math and computer science, but quickly switched to international relations, which he studied for two years. After exhausting Cornell’s undergraduate IR offerings, he began taking courses in political/social/critical theory, leading him to pursue questions of power and politics outside the political science canon. At the GSD, he intends to continue his study of architectures of power, how power is transmitted and distorted by its interaction with objects, built space, and human beings. Evidence may take the form of film, objects, art, and rhetoric, in addition to text—philosophical, political, literary, etc. Writers including Marx, the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysts, and contemporary Continental thinkers have been very important for the kinds of arguments he’s interested in making. His interests being not solely textual, he is looking to use interactive, artifact-oriented artwork and possibly filmmaking as means of exploring theoretical questions.

[ rogacz@fas.harvard.edu ]

Rebecca Ross has an MFA in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art and an MSc in Geography from University College London. From 2002-2004, she held a joint appointment as Research Scientist at the NYU Center for Advanced Technology and Visiting Faculty at NYU’s Gallatin School. Her work considers relationships between pictorial spaces and the spaces of the built environment, especially as understood by the design professions.

[ rross@fas.harvard.edu ] [ http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~rross/ ]

Ivan Rupnik holds a professional Bachelor of Architecture (Louisiana State University) and Master’s in Architecture with Distinction (Harvard University). He is the author of Project Zagreb: Transition as Condition, Strategy and Practice (with Eve Blau, Actar 2007). In 2004–05 he held an Associate Professor position at Syracuse University. He was also a Visiting Professor at Syracuse University and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito. Ivan’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Quito Biennale, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and at Archmoscow. His current research investigates appropriations and misappropriations of the scientific method by postwar and contemporary architectural discourse and practice.

[ irupnik@fas.harvard.edu ]

Fallon Samuels is interested in the architecture and engineering of bridges, particularly in relation to urban, national and international development of the built environment in the 20th century. Her research focuses on the cultural exchange between aesthetic, architectural and engineering consultants to transportation projects and public works authorities of North, Central and South America. Fallon holds a B.S. in civil/structural engineering from Columbia University and M.S. in Architecture Studies (SMArchS) of building technology from MIT. She has received fellowships for graduate research from the Smithsonian Institution, MIT and the National Building Museum.

[ fsamuels@fas.harvard.edu ]

Jesse Shapins is an urban researcher, curator, media artist and design educator. Since graduating from Columbia University with a B.A. in Urban Studies in 2002, he has lived and worked primarily in Berlin and New York. His research focus is the history and theory of urban representation in the documentary arts. He is the co-author of The Colors of Berlin, a publication from Prestel Verlag combining photography, design, texts and mapping that presents a new portrait of everyday life in the German capital. Jesse is also a founding member and director of UnionDocs, a Brooklyn-based 501 (c) 3 non-profit documentary arts collaborative. Jesse is also a Co-Creator of Yellow Arrow, an interactive global public art project. In spring 2007, Jesse was an Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and was Program Director for the Pratt Design Initiative for Community Empowerment.

[ jshapins@fas.harvard.edu ] [ http://jesseshapins.net ]

N.R. Smith studies the relationship between everyday patterns of behavior and the organic production of space and the built environment. Emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach that includes methodologies and perspectives from fields such as sociocultural anthropology, archaeology, geography, and architectural and urban history, his work focuses primarily on modern and late imperial China. N.R. also has a strong interest in the application of remote sensing, GIS, and other quantitative methods to the study of urbanism. Prior to joining the GSD, N.R. worked in the Strategy and Policy Division of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. As a Fulbright and Sheldon Scholar in 2005, he pursued field work studying the relationship between lineage structure and the spatial organization of rural villages in the Huizhou region of southern Anhui and northern Jiangxi provinces in China. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in East Asian Studies.

[ smith22@fas.harvard.edu ]

David Theodore is fascinated by the intersecting histories of architecture, medicine, and technology. He likes to concoct stories about the discipline of architecture and not just its practitioners. That usually means paying attention to buildings as material culture artifacts, rather than as works of art, but both approaches need strategic deployment. He recently taught in Montreal in the School of Architecture, McGill University, as a research associate, and in the Department of Design, Concordia University. He is a mentor in the Health Care, Technology and Place CIHR training and research initiative at the University of Toronto. An active design journalist and critic, he serves as a regional correspondent for The Canadian Architect, a contributing editor at Azure, and a contributor to the Phaidon Atlas of 21st-Century World Architecture.

[ theodore@fas.harvard.edu ]

Olga Touloumi holds a professional degree in architecture from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a Master of Science in History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture from MIT. Her general interest is in the history of architectural theory and the fields that have informed it. In particular, Olga explores the notion of space through developments in musical composition and performance in the avant-garde music scene of the 20th century, the history of sound technologies and acoustics. Her current research focuses on the concept of “ambience” in architectural, musical and art production of the 60’s and the 70’s.

[ touloumi@fas.harvard.edu ]

Delia Wendel holds a professional degree in Architecture from Rice University, a Master of Science in Cultural Geography from University College London, and a Master of Design Studies in Architectural History and Theory from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is currently on leave from the University of Edinburgh, where she lectures in Architectural Design. She has worked as a design principal and for award-winning architecture firms in Washington, DC and New York City. Formative years in developing countries gave rise to a tacit understanding of social and political space, which translated into design work underpinned by a crosspollination of the social sciences and architectural history and theory. Broadly speaking, Delia’s current research follows architecture’s technical and representational roles in response to impending and occurring urban crises.

[ dwendel@fas.harvard.edu ]