Meet the GSD Class of 2026 Commencement Marshals
Each year, graduating students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) come together to nominate and elect classmates to serve as commencement marshals by program. Selection as a commencement marshal is both a high honor and one of Harvard’s most cherished traditions. During commencement exercises, marshals help to organize the GSD procession to Harvard Yard. Following commencement, the marshals serve as alumni liaisons for their class cohorts.
Meet the graduates who will represent their programs at the GSD’s 2025 Commencement:
Architecture: Ibie Opuso-Jama
A global citizen who grew up in Eswatini, Ibie is currently based in Toronto, Canada. She obtained her bachelor of design in architecture at the University of Florida and is receiving her master of architecture from the GSD. Ibie has contributed to hospitality and health sciences projects at HKS Architects in Orlando, Florida, and Gensler in Boston, Massachusetts. At the GSD, she has enjoyed contributing her skills and mentorship to the school’s Fabrications Lab, Career Services, and Facilities and Alumni Relations.
Ibie approaches architecture as a sequence of moments that unfold over time, shaped by material expression, light, and human interaction. Her work is driven by a passion for storytelling and experience, with a particular interest in how design can create immersive, emotionally resonant environments. As the co-founder of GSD SOUNDCLUB, Ibie enjoys curating spaces where sound and design intersect. During her time at the GSD, she learned a new language through the Center for African Studies, becoming a strong advocate for language acquisition, and served as Harvard University’s 2024 representative for the Howard University Zulu in South Africa (HUZISA) study aboard program. In her free time, she enjoys attending concerts and painting. Ibie is honored to represent the MArch class of 2026.
Landscape Architecture: Marianne Bojelian Papas
Marianne is a California based designer, educator, and advocate whose work grows from family, caregiving, sensory sensitivity, and a commitment to neurodiversity in public space. She earned her bachelor of architecture from SCI-Arc in 1993 and returned to design education more than 30 years later as a form of advocacy, bringing greater awareness of sensory and neurodiversity needs into design education and practice. Her work as a daughter, wife, mother, volunteer, and founder of children’s programs, school garden education, and environmental stewardship shaped her belief that landscapes can support learning, healing, and development. This conviction led her to focus her thesis on workplace landscapes for neurodiverse populations, a direction she intends to continue beyond the GSD. Marianne is proud to serve as the 2026 MLA Class Marshal and give back to the GSD community.
Urban Design: Andrea DÃaz Ferreyra
Born and raised in Lima, Perú, Andrea holds a bachelor of architecture from Universidad de Lima and is receiving a master of architecture in urban design from the GSD. After earning her professional license in Perú, she co-founded DUALE Design Studio alongside her partner Kiara Wong (MAUD ’25) while serving as a professor at her undergraduate alma mater, where she led design studios and technical courses. She has also contributed to the planning and landscape teams at HOK’s office in New York.
As an urban designer, Andrea is committed to creating high-quality public spaces for underserved communities, guided by the belief that a thoughtfully designed public realm should be a right for all rather than a privilege for a few. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, photography, and—above all—baking and sharing the goods with her friends. Andrea is honored to serve as commencement marshal for the MAUD/MLAUD class of 2026.
Real Estate: John Heaster
John grew up in Hawaii and is an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor at Slice, a fintech investment platform. His time at the GSD, where he earned a master in real estate, inspired him to co-found Remat, a platform to advance sustainability and material circularity within the construction industry. John brings over 12 years of institutional experience across finance, real estate, and consulting. He previously held strategic leadership roles at J.P. Morgan Corporate and Investment Bank and State Street, focusing on joint ventures. Deeply committed to community impact, he also serves as board president of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation.
Design Studies: Wyatt Roy
Wyatt is an Australian-American media designer, educator, and systems researcher whose practice spans extended reality, computational design, pedagogy, and film. Trained at Stanford and the GSD, he explores how tools and experiences can bring people into more honest relationships with themselves and more meaningful connection with others.
His practice is shaped by wide-ranging fieldwork: making documentaries across a dozen countries; collaborating across departments at the GSD to found the unstudio, a creative collision space for the third of students without dedicated workspace in Gund Hall; and authoring How to Change Institutions, a pocket-sized book on finding power and nurturing organizations through collaborative rather than adversarial methods.
Wyatt’s work is unified by a conviction that design can bridge inner experience and shared reality—and that institutions, like people, are most alive when they make room for the unplanned.
Urban Planning: Fatima Tajammal
Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Fatima grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and is receiving a master in urban planning at the GSD. Her work explores how design can address global challenges at the intersection of food systems, climate resilience, public health, and equitable urban development. In the urban planning department she served as a career ambassador and research assistant. She also served as a co-chair of Healthy Places GSD, Folks in Design, and as a board member for the Harvard Urban Planning Organization. Her research examines urban foodscapes, integrating Indigenous planning frameworks in development processes, and the role of public space in shaping healthier and more inclusive communities. Through the M-LAB at Pratt Institute, Fatima is researching water governance, climate resilience, and historic preservation in cities along the Indus River. She is honored to represent the MUP class of 2026!
Design Engineering: Valentine Geze
A Chicago native, Valentine earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering with a minor in studio art from Loyola University Chicago. Before coming to the GSD, she worked as an environmental engineer at Partner Engineering & Science and as an environmental, social, and governance consultant at Ernst & Young. At Harvard, her research sits at the intersection of ecology, technology, and material systems, guided by a commitment to rendering climate futures legible and actionable. Her thesis explores landscape-scale comparison in ecological restoration. During her time in the MDE program, Valentine served as class representative, presented her research at the Circular Materials Conference in Copenhagen, and was awarded the GSD-Courances Design Residency to study sediment and hydrology in a traditional French garden. Valentine is honored to represent the MDE 2026 cohort.
Doctor of Design: Yona Chung
Yona is a designer and researcher from South Korea. Having grown up across multiple cities and countries, she has developed a sustained interest in the reciprocal relationship between ways of life and the built environment across different cultural contexts. Her doctoral research at the Harvard GSD examines the spatialization of consumption and the ways such patterns are shaped by broader demographic change, policy, and urban form. Her work has been supported by the Harvard Korea Institute, the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, and the Dean’s Merit Scholarship, among others.
At the GSD, Yona served as a teaching fellow in core urban design courses and contributed to several research initiatives, including the Urban Design Case Study Archive, The State of Housing Design 2023, and the exhibition A Temporary Exhibition of Temporal Public Spaces, which she co-curated. She is the co-author of Design Thinking and Storytelling in Architecture (Birkhäuser, 2024), The Metabolism of Reuse (L’Echappée Belle Édition, 2026), and Space, Time, and Circumstances in Urban and Architectural Design (forthcoming, Park Books, 2026), and has published in several peer-reviewed journals.
Alongside her academic work, Yona has practiced at design and planning firms including Landon Bone Baker Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and, more recently, as a senior urban designer at Grayscale Collaborative.