Ingrid Haftel

Ingrid was the Community Education Program Director for CUP. Before CUP, she was Curator of Exhibitions at the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), Chicago’s leading forum for the exchange of ideas on urban design. While at CAF, Ingrid developed major exhibitions that helped public audiences think critically about complex issues related to urban planning and architecture. Ingrid received her B.A. in English and Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, and her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago.

Cole Hannan

Cole Hannan is a director/animator/all-around-visual-artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He loves to make art and use a myriad of mediums to express myself. Currently he is concepting an episodic dreamscape fantasy video series, hand-painting a line of t-shirts and creating animated commercials for them, pitching bands for music videos, writing weird psychedelic songs on guitar, all the while working professionally as an editor/animator/designer. www.ilovemonsters.com

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.

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Oscar Nuñez

Oscar was a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. He is a graduate of the City and Regional Planning Master’s Program at Pratt Institute with a concentration on Community Development. While completing his studies at Pratt, Oscar worked and interned in various local community organizations and groups, including CUP, on issues dealing with planning, design, and community education and engagement. Previously, he received a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.  Originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and French and can give pretty good directions in Portuguese.

Jenn Anne Williams

Jenn was CUP’s Youth Education Program Manager. With a strong belief that all youths deserve equitable access to the arts, Jenn has developed inclusive programs, published curriculum guides, and trained educators in how to use the arts as a tool for understanding, development, and social change with over 100 New York City public schools and community based organizations.  Jenn continues her pursuit of art as a tool for empowerment as a practicing artist, designer, educator, and administrator implementing high-quality, interdisciplinary art programs. You can follow her creative pursuits at artjawdesigns.com.

Nikki Chung

Nikki Chung is a graphic designer and the principal of Once & Future, a design studio in NYC dedicated to bringing thoughtful visual order to complex information. Once & Future makes identities, websites, mobile apps, books, illustrations, and more for small businesses and cultural organizations. Nikki received a BA in Architecture from UC Berkeley and a MFA in Graphic Design from RISD. She has worked with CUP on Scary, OK With It, Good, Soda Census, and Draw the Line. Her website is http://once-future.com

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.

Sam Holleran

Is an artist, designer, and writer. Sam was CUP’s Communications Coordinator from 2011 to 2014. He attended the the Cooper Union where he was the recipient of the Herb Lubalin Fellowship for Typography and the Benjamin Menschel Fellowship for Creative Inquiry. Sam has worked extensively in printmaking; his fields of interest include: photogravure, letterpress, Ukiyo-e, and silkscreen.

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. 

Elijah Bobo

Elijah Bobo was the 2019 CUP Fellow for Change in Design. He is from Flint, Michigan and is a recent graduate from Eastern Michigan University with a BFA in Graphic Design. With his time at Eastern he worked for many on-campus organizations such as the Center for Diversity and Community Involvement, the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and the School of Art and Design, organizations that use their platforms to promote inclusivity, research, and culture. Elijah wants to take what he has learned about critical thinking and creative problem solving to apply them to issues that are impacting the communities where he grew up, and where he has recently relocated, New York City.

Brooklyn Defender Services

Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) is one of the largest public defense providers in the United States. BDS provides innovative, multi-disciplinary, and client-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, civil legal services, social work support and advocacy, for tens of thousands of clients in Brooklyn every year. CUP teamed up with public defenders from Brooklyn Defender Services to create What You Need to Know About ACS and What Do Incarcerated Parents Need to Know About ACS?

Both guides break down the complex and difficult to navigate ACS investigation process, so parents know what’s coming and what they can do to make sure they get the best results for their family. http://bds.org/

Michela Buttignol

Born and raised in Northern Italy, Michela Buttignol is a New York-based freelance illustrator whose technological fortitude has enabled her to branch across a variety of mediums. In 2011, she moved to New York to become a freelance illustrator, and since has been featured in The New York Times, American Illustration 31, 3X3 Annual N.10, Illustration Age, Brain Pickings and she just got selected for Illustrators 57 by the Society Of Illustrators in New York. The Fox Is Black described Michela’s style as dark and mysterious, yet still retaining an aspect of cheekiness.

The Pennsylvania Farmworker Project of Philadelphia Legal Assistance

The Pennsylvania Farmworker Project (PFP) of Philadelphia Legal Assistance is a legal services program whose mission is to provide legal assistance to low-income migrant and seasonal farmworkers throughout Pennsylvania. PFP represents Pennsylvania farmworkers in matters relating to the violation of local, state, and federal employment laws, and now, through a Low Income Taxpayer Clinic grant, in tax controversies with the Internal Revenue Service. A large part of PFP’s work is conducting outreach at labor camps throughout Pennsylvania to educate workers about their employment and tax rights.

Andrew Sloat

Andrew Sloat is a graphic designer and filmmaker. His studio makes books, identities, educational videos, ads, and websites for non-profits, cultural institutions, and corporate clients. He lives and works in Brooklyn, is active in local and state-level good-government activism, and teaches in the graphic design MFAprogram at RISD.

Brendan McBride

As a researcher in Brazil, El Salvador, and Mexico, Brendan began to understand the powerful role immigrant remittances play in improving economic opportunities and standards of living in immigrants’ hometowns. Back in his native New Jersey, Brendan coordinated an outreach team that connected migrant farmworkers to medical services, an experience that that got him thinking about the transformational power of well-targeted information. Brendan has also worked in affordable housing development for over ten years, mostly in cities in the US. In 2010, he founded Remás, a nonprofit organization motivated by the belief that people everywhere, no matter who they are or where they come from, should have access to information that improves their financial options in life. He has written about microfinance, housing, and immigration issues for United Nations Habitat, Habitat for Humanity and as a Fellow at Kiva. Brendan earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Amherst College and a M.Sc. in Urban Development and Management from Erasmus University in the Netherlands. He enjoys cooking, biking, and embarrassing himself in foreign languages. 

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Mary Voorhees Meehan and Neil Donnelly

Neil Donnelly and Mary Voorhees Meehan are graphic designers who work in print, identity, interactive, exhibition, and motion design. Their clients include Yale University, Williams College, the New Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, The New York Times, Storefront for Art and Architecture, The New School, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They have been working together since meeting in the graphic design MFA program at Yale. Both are active design educators and live and work in Brooklyn. Neil and Mary will be working with CUP on the upcoming MPP Increasing Immigrants’ Access to Banks.