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Meet the GSD Class of 2022 Commencement Marshals

Graphic with a purple to blue gradient background and the text 2022 Commencement, Meet the Class Marshals, Commencement 2022.

Each year, graduating students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design come together to nominate and elect classmates to serve as commencement marshals by program. Being selected as a commencement marshal is one of Harvard’s most beloved traditions and is a high honor for a graduating student. During commencement exercises, marshals help to organize the GSD procession to Harvard Yard. After Commencement, the marshals become the alumni liaisons for their class cohorts.

Meet the graduates who will represent their program at the GSD’s 2022 Commencement:

Architecture: Stephanie Lloyd

Headshot of Stephanie Lloyd in front of a concrete wall.Born and raised in Fremont, California, Stephanie received her B.A. in Architecture with distinction from UC Berkeley, where she received the Eisner Prize for Architecture as well as the university’s prestigious Leadership Award. During her time at the GSD, Stephanie worked as a designer and a researcher for multiple practices, including studioPM and MILLIØNS. She was a contributing editor of the upcoming Pairs 03, a student-led journal dedicated to conversations about design, and she served as both the President and the Academic Chair of GSD Student Forum. As a first-generation student, Stephanie is deeply committed to extending design education and discourse to a broader audience, and has accepted a position as a Design Instructor for the upcoming Design Discovery and Design Discovery Virtual programs. Stephanie is graduating from the GSD with a Master’s in Architecture as the 2021-2022 Gregory S. Baldwin Fellow.

Landscape Architecture: Jacob Cascio

Portrait of Jacob Cascio.Originally from San Anselmo, California, Jacob lived for a time in Portland, Oregon, where he studied History as an undergraduate at Reed College. While at Harvard, Jacob worked as a tutor with Academic Writing Services, a free service available to all GSD students through Frances Loeb Library. In 2021, a piece he wrote on the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco won second place in The Avery Review Essay Prize. In his free time, Jacob prefers to sit at a small garden table in partial shade, with a glass of sparkling water and half a lemon. He is so honored to represent the 2022 cohort of graduating MLA students!

Urban Design: Naksha Satish

Portrait of Naksha Satish shrugging playfully.A native of Bangalore, India, Naksha studied at the School of Architecture, CEPT University and pursued an urban fellowship at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) before enrolling at the GSD. Her professional interests lie at the intersection of technology, housing, and sustainable design of cities. While at Harvard, Naksha held a variety of leadership roles, including serving as an India Design Leadership Fellow, GSD representative of the Harvard External Advocacy Council, Professional Development Chair of GSD Student Forum, the Urban Design Department’s UD:ID Conversations Lead, and Curator of the GSD Alumni Council’s Design Impact South Asia Panel. Outside of school, Naksha enjoys discovering new places, charcoal sketching, and writing. She believes in collective learning and standing for the rights women are entitled to as practitioners, across the globe.

Urban Planning: Miguel Perez-Luna

Headshot of Miguel Perez-Luna in the trays.Miguel grew up in Greeley, CO, and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College with a major in psychology. After his undergraduate program, he completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Italy before returning to teach high school math in Cambridge, MA. His experience growing up in an immigrant family and his work with students and families inspired him to pursue urban planning. While at the GSD, Miguel explored how cities can design more equitable community engagement processes, accessible transportation systems, and inclusive public spaces. Outside of class, he served on the leadership teams of Latin GSD and Queers in Design, and in the summer of 2021 he interned as a policy analyst for the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. In his free time, he enjoys running, cooking, eating, and traveling.

Design Studies: Shane Ah-Siong

Headshot of Shane Ah-Siong in front of a flowering tree.Shane is a design researcher from Mauritius. Trained in architecture, his academic and activist enquiries lie at the intersection of spatial politics and the built form. As an undergraduate at the University of Florida, Shane co-founded the Coalition in Design, which commits to advancing goals of racial equity and decolonial architectural teachings within the School of Architecture. At Harvard, he was co-curator of Kirkland Gallery, and worked with Harvard Innovation Labs and the Radcliffe Institute. Shane also served as a Teaching Fellow in the department of Theatre, Dance and Media. His thesis aims to spatialize colonial memory and decenter dominant racial historiographies in Mauritius and the Chagos Archipelagos. Outside of the classroom, Shane can be found engaging in the dramatic arts, designing clothing with his brother, swimming, and painting.

Design Engineering: Doria Spiegel

Headshot of Doria Spiegel in front of a tree.Doria Spiegel was born in Forchheim, Germany, and grew up primarily in the western suburbs of Chicago. She received a B.A. in physics and math from St. Olaf College in Minnesota, after which she served over two years in the US Peace Corps as a STEM Education Development Agent near Atebubu, Ghana. During her time in Harvard’s Masters in Design Engineering program, her areas of focus included educational game development, fabrication and robotics, data science, astrophysics, and quantum chaos. She also acted as an MDE ’22 Class Representative and worked as a Teaching Fellow for a graduate-level SEAS course and Teaching Assistant through GSD. In her free time, Doria loves to build things, play with her two dogs, harmonize to any song and spend as much time as possible outdoors.

Doctor of Design: Mojdeh Mahdavi

Portrait of Mojdeh Madhavi in the trays.Originally from Tehran, Iran, Mojdeh received a Bachelor of Architectural Design and a Master of Landscape Architecture at the University of Tehran, and a Post-Master in Urban Studies at École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris LaVillette, ENSAPLV. She then practiced urban and architectural design in Paris, Tehran, and Almaty in well-established firms and experimental design groups, before deciding to pursue her Doctor of Design at Harvard. Mojdeh’s doctoral project investigated how digital transformation and smart city technologies change the policymaking context, institutions of urban governance, and the city. Her broader research engages with the evolving relationships between urbanization, urban governance and politics, and digital technology. While at the GSD, Mojdeh was actively involved with Harvard Bloomberg City Leadership Initiative, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Urban Theory Lab, and New Geographies. She co-edited the twelfth volume, New Geographies 12: Commons. Mojdeh enjoys drawing, reading, gardening, and weight-lifting in her free time.