Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design at Yale University School of Art, received a BA in art history from Barnard College, Columbia University and a MFA in the graphic design area of study at Yale University School of Art, as well as honorary doctorates from California College of the Arts and Moore College of Art. She is on the first list of 40 honored as the most influential people in design by I-D, and in 2004 Sheila was awarded the American Institute of Graphic Arts gold medal awarded since 1920 to individuals who have set standards of excellence over a lifetime of work. Her award winning print graphics are in the special collections of museums and libraries here and abroad as are her site-specific public artworks. Whether in print or permanent materials, Sheila specializes in the inclusion of local populations and multiple perspectives in her work.

Sheila was a MPP juror.

Sarah Ludwig

Sarah Ludwig is the Co-Director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, a leading advocate on community equity and financial justice issues. Since founding NEDAP in 1995, she has worked with hundreds of grassroots groups to develop local organizing and advocacy strategies to address redlining and lending discrimination. Sarah co-leads New Yorkers for Responsible Lending, a state-wide coalition of more than 140 community and consumer groups and community financial institutions dedicated to combating predatory lending practices. Sarah was a 2000 fellow in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership Program, and in 2002 received the Union Square Award. In 2004, she was selected as a Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World awardee. Sarah recently completed a 3-year term on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, and serves on the boards of directors of the Consumer Federation of America and North Star Fund. In December 2008, she received New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s Felix A. Fishman Award, for “her exceptional service on behalf of low income communities.”

Sarah was a prior MPP juror and is currently working with CUP on the MPP about Banks on the Fringe. 

Ellen Lupton

Ellen Lupton is a writer, curator, and graphic designer. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she also serves as director of the Center for Design Thinking. She has produced numerous exhibitions as curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum since 1992. An author of numerous books and articles on design, she is a public-minded critic, frequent lecturer, and AIGA Gold Medalist.

Ellen was a MPP juror.

Abbott Miller

Abbott Miller has evolved a design practice that crosses from page to screen to exhibitions, environments, and architectural signage. Embracing the role of editor, writer, and curator in many of his exhibition and publications, he has used design as a way of exploring and interpreting art, architecture, public space, performance, fashion, and design. Before joining the New York office of Pentagram as a partner in 1999, he founded Design/Writing/Research, a multidisciplinary studio that pioneered the concept of the “designer as author.” In 2014, Miller received the American Institute of Graphic Arts Medal, the profession’s highest honor.

Denise Miranda

Denise Miranda is the Managing Director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, shaping its research, advocacy, and litigation agenda. Born and raised in the Bronx, Ms. Miranda is a member of the New York State Bar as well as admitted to the Southern and Eastern Federal District Courts. She serves on the Board of Directors at Union Community Health Center and the Community Services Association and is an outspoken advocate in the fight against economic inequality.

Leah Obias

Leah Obias is Campaigns Coordinator and Case Worker for Damayan Migrant Workers Association, a grassroots, membership-based organization of Filipino women domestic workers and other low-wage migrant workers in the New York City area. Leah was a founding member of the youth organization Ugnayan, where she worked on local youth-centered programs addressing issues of cultural identity, education and family separation, and helped to develop the organization’s first youth restaurant worker campaign on wage theft. As Damayan’s campaign coordinator, Leah directly supports members with cases while connecting them to larger organizing efforts and advocacy on wage theft, trafficking, and the proper valuation of domestic work as women’s work. Through Damayan’s leadership in the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Leah has also been active in national efforts to build the power of domestic workers and expand workers’ right to organize across different industries.

Mike Perry

Mike Perry works in Brooklyn, NY, making books, magazines, newspapers, clothing, drawings, paintings, illustrations and teaching whenever possible. His first book, titled Hand Job and published by Princeton Architectural Press, hit the book shelves in 2006. His second book, titled Over & Over, hit the shelves in 2008. He is currently working on two new books. In 2007 he started a magazine called Untitled, that explores his current interests. He has worked with clients from New York Times Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Microsoft Zune, Urban Outfitters, eMusic, and Zoo York. In 2004 he was chosen as one of Step Magazine’s 30 under 30, as a groundbreaking illustrator by Computer Arts Projects Magazine in 2007. He received Print Magazine’s New Visual Artist award in 2008, and was chosen by the Art Directors Club as one of this years Young Guns. Doodling away night and day, Perry creates new typefaces and sundry graphics that inevitably evolve into his new work, exercising the great belief that the generating of piles is the sincerest form of creative process. His work has been seen around the world including a recent solo show in London titled “The Place between Time and Space.”

Mike was a MPP juror.

Maria Popova

Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is the founder and editor of Brain Pickings. She writes for Wired UK, The Atlantic, and Design Observer, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.

Luna Ranjit

Luna Ranjit is the co-founder and Executive Director of Adhikaar. She has over ten years of experience in organizing, activism, and participatory action research in the US and South Asia. Prior to Adhikaar, she worked at Andolan, APICHA, and New Voices National Fellowship Program. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, and a master’s degree in public and international affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She regularly appears on print and broadcast media on issues related to workers’ rights, language access, and the needs of the emerging Nepali-speaking community. She currently lives in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Lucas Shapiro

Lucas Shapiro is one of the founders of Mayday Space, a collaborative center for social justice organizing, community empowerment, and creative expression based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Mayday is a neighborhood resource and a citywide destination for engaging programming, dancing and other nightlife activities, and a welcoming gathering place for people to work, learn and build together. Before Mayday, he was the Senior Organizer at Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), building power with low-income families to fight for jobs, housing and justice.

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.

Mahkeddah Thompson

Mahkeddah Thompson is a two time Public Access Design alum. Thompson works at Housing Court Answers, a group that provides eviction prevention services to pro se litigants in NYC Housing Courts. Thompson is a passionate social justice, crochet and roots reggae records. She runs a small handmade business, Konjo Crochet.

Chat Travieso

CHAT TRAVIESO is an artist and architectural designer based out of Brooklyn, NY. He was the teaching artist for The Big Squeeze, an Urban Investigation that explores the issue of housing size in New York City. Chat’s work takes the form of playful and interactive design/build urban interventions that encourage people to question their assumptions of the built environment. Check out his website www.chattravieso.com to see what he’s up to these days.

Chat Travieso

Chat Travieso is a Brooklyn-based artist, designer, and educator. He creates architectural public art projects that reinforce social bonds in our public spaces. His most recent works were commissioned by or organized in collaboration with The Architectural League of New York, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Lower East Side Waterfront Alliance, Design Trust for Public Space, and the NYC Department of Transportation. He has worked as a teaching artist with the Center for Urban Pedagogy and Hester Street Collaborative. He is currently a Smack Mellon Studio Program Artist and a recipient of a New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship as part of his Smack Mellon residency.

Valeria Treves

Valeria Treves is the Executive Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a community based organization and workers center in Jackson Heights Queens that works to ensure that new immigrants can build social, political and economic power in their communities and beyond. As Executive Director, Valeria has overseen the transition of NICE into a member led organization streamlining programs and campaigns to more closely fit the needs of the member base, newly arrived low wage undocumented immigrants working in the unregulated sectors of the construction, domestic work, and service industries. Prior to coming toNICE in 2006, Valeria worked as an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College-CUNY and was an adjunct organizer for the PSC-CUNY. Before that she worked as a Middle School Teacher in Oakland, California and was active in teacher organizing in the fight against high-stakes standardized testing. Valeria holds an M.A. in Geography from Hunter College-CUNY and a B.A. in Development Studies from UC Berkeley. Valeria is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and grew up in Mexico, Argentina and Los Angles, CA.