As you can see here, our alumni work at a wide range of places, including architecture, planning and construction firms, government agencies, real estate offices, non-profit advocacy groups, sustainability firms, cultural institutions, and historic sites. Some have also gone on to M.Arch and Ph.D. programs in architecture, city planning, law, and history at major universities in the U.S. and the U.K.
Alumni News II
Alumni News
Over 120 students have earned the M.A. in Historical and Sustainable Architecture over our first 9 years. We find that earning our degree opens opportunities for our graduates to expeditiously enter the field in positions of responsibility. Most are now working in historic preservation and adaptive reuse, at a wide variety of offices, agencies, and firms throughout the world. Please see below for our first alumni news update, where you can learn more about some of our graduates.
Photo: Social Venture Partners
Christina Smith
Class of 2011
Christina is a member of City Council in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she is also Executive Director of Groundwork Bridgeport, a community-based preservation and advocacy organization. She is also Trustee of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, and in 2018 she was named a Professional Development Fellow at the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office. She is working on a project with the Fairfield Garden Club to restore the Olmsted and Vaux design for a lookout section in Bridgeport’s Seaside Park.
Photo: LinkedIn
Cecil Barnes
Class of 2012
Cecil is Architectural Designer at Chartier Dalix in Paris, France. He was formerly Architectural Designer at Bernard Tschumi in New York City. He earned his M.Arch from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) in 2015.
Photo: LinkedIn
Heather Shimmin
Class of 2012
Heather works as Photo Review Coordinator at Shutterstock in New York City and she leads tours for Untapped Cities.
Photo: Second Wave Media
Chad Rochkind
Class of 2012
Chad is founder of Human Scale Studio and he is currently working as Strategist at SY Partners in Brooklyn. In 2017 he was named to the YBCA100 list, which recognizes Chad’s present efforts and its potential for future impact. In 2018 he produced a documentary about some of his work in Detroit that was selected to the Free Press Film Festival. He also published an article in CityLab based on interviews with mayors, thought leaders, and practitioners about the future of cities: “My main takeaway: cities are society condensed in space, so the issues that impact cities are often things that occur outside their borders. Immigration policy, population growth, and environmental regulation all impact the shape and form of cities in ways that are difficult to imagine when we craft those policies. To me, this means that policymakers should approach their work with a degree of humility, open-mindedness and agility.”
Visit company website
Photo: The-Dots
Alessandro Bello
Class of 2015
Alessandro is working as an Assistant Architect for AKI Development in Astoria NY, best known for Graffiti House, which has won Interior Design and Landscaping awards from the Queens Chamber of Commerce. He was formerly a Heritage Planning Consultant at Savills in London for several years.
Photo: LinkedIn
Monica Bacon
Class of 2016
Monica is a Historic Buildings Specialist for the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, assigned to the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii in their Cultural Resources section, Environmental Division. She assists with the identification, evaluation of potential eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and the preservation & adaptive re-use of historic buildings for the U.S. Army in Hawaii. Monica serves on the non-profit Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa’s Memorial Design team, and volunteers her time working on an architectural inventory survey of historic patient homes at Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai. Monica’s landscape architecture themed capstone thesis was the inspiration behind her recently published article in The London Gardener, the journal of the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust (2018, Volume 22), entitled “Thomas Square, Honolulu: a ‘London Square’ in the Hawaiian Islands”.
Photo: LinkedIn
Grace Braganza
Class of 2016
Grace is currently living in Princeton, New Jersey, where she works for KSS Architects in Princeton and Philadelphia as a Marketing Coordinator, which includes writing and research about projects, assisting with RFPs, on-site project photo shoots, and graphic design. KSS is a wide service firm with a specialty in adaptive reuse projects. Her experience with project in London informs her approach to many similar projects on her work with KSS.
Photo: LinkedIn
Corinne Hargraves
Class of 2016
Corinne is Assistant Project Manager at Neuberger Berman in New York City.
Photo: MacRostie Historic Advisors
Ryan Cameron
Class of 2017
Ryan works as a Junior Associate at MacRostie Historic Advisors in Boston, where he researches and writes National Register nominations all over the country. He writes the he “gets to nerd out looking at buildings all over the country, I love it. I can’t say I know anyone else my age that can genuinely say they enjoy going to work most days so I am pretty stoked.”
Photo: LinkedIn
Polyn Gonzalez
Class of 2017
Polyn works in the Chilean Ministry of Arts, Culture, and Heritage, focusing on sustainable conservation of historic architecture. She is also teaches architectural preservation and adaptive reuse at the University of Viña del Mar. In 2018, Polyn was one of nine people selected for the US – ICOMOS International Exchange Program. In the summer of 2018 she worked with the Preservation Institute of Nantucket and the University of Florida to carry out a Historic Houses Inventory and documentation project in Nantucket Massachussetts.
Photo: LinkedIn
Brianna Kuperavage
Class of 2017
Brianna is working as an architectural designer at Ralph C Fey Architects in Bucks County, PA. The firm works with a variety of commercial and residential projects. Some projects deal with historic properties and reuse schemes.
Photo: Archinet
Jasber Singh
Class of 2017
Jasber is Director of Operations at the New York-based design/build firm MADE, which has an expansive portfolio of restoration and gut renovation projects in historic West Village and Brooklyn townhouses. Jasber works on Landmark Preservation Commission applications for many of these projects, and in 2018 she lectured to Parsons School students about the design process of her work at MADE. Jasber is also working on interactive Google map of NYC’s midtown modern buildings for the DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State Midtown Modern Project.