Designed by Me
Updated November 2025
Austin Light Rail
Urban Planning + Research
Project With: Gehl
Project Partners: HKS, UNS
Client: Austin Transit Partnership
The City of Austin is growing its mass transit system, with the new addition of a light rail that runs the spine of the city, and heads east towards the airport. Gehl was tasked with planning for this new form of transit; how does local culture fit into the light rail? How do we ensure existing businesses thrive as things change? How does the light rail interact with the current commuter rail, bus network, and micro-mobility stations?
My role was to study the existing conditions, conduct on-the-ground observations, collect data on how people move through Austin at each proposed station, and talk directly to residents about what they want — all to create a light rail that fits naturally into the current landscape, and promotes upward mobility.
Graphic by: Donna Mena
Go Vote NYC
Data Mapping + Storytelling
Project With: Hester Street
Project Partners: NYC Votes
Client: The City of New York
This map was the direct response to a previous project for the 2020 Census: a mapping tool to help community-based organizations get their neighborhoods counted. Later that same year was the General Election for the Mayor of NYC. Hester Street was tasked with making an outreach map, including demographic, election, and advocacy data aggregated by multiple geographies to serve as a tool for CBO's to make sure they went out and had their voices heard.
My role design lead of this map, as well as data scientist. I created the map on ArcGIS online, collected all the included datasets, cleaned those that needed it, wrote the code that synced them together, and taught CBOs how to use it. This led to over 2,000 interactions between the summers of 2020-2021.
NYC Child Care
Co-design
Project With: NYC Innovation Team
Project Partners: NYC Mayor's Office of Child Care, Office of Technology and Innovation
Child Care in NYC is extremely complicated to navigate for parents, providers, and city administrators. There are too many front-doors, mapping tools, types of child care, and types of care providers to understand. NYC Child Care is a website that brings all that information together; providing a comprehensive look at the child care landscape in NYC, as well as a map of all licensed providers in NYC (the first of its kind).
My role is project co-lead and community engagement specialist for the Innovation Team. I conducted extensive research, both desktop and directly with parents and providers, and recommended design ideas and functionality for the website. We spoke to or interacted with over 3,000 NYC parents and care providers. Myself and my co-lead worked with a Content Specialist and a UX Designer to turn an idea into a product currently in development. The slated launch for this project is January 2026.
Futures NYC
Data Mapping + Storytelling
Project With: Hester Street
Client: Make the Road, Vocal NY
What does NYC look like in the future? Where homelessness does not exist? Where healthcare is a human right? Where your mental health is cared for, instead of being seen as a catalyst for police intervention? These are the questions we asked in a data storytelling project called Futures NYC.
My role was lead data storyteller; turning experiences shared by New Yorkers into data visualizations and a full digital experience. The experience starts with a problem, a way to solve the problem, and what members of the City would do if that problem did not exist. This experience was a combination of foresight, public policy, and storytelling with qualitative and quantitative data.
5th Ave Public Realm Study
Urban Design + Research
Project With: Gehl
Project Partners: Public Policy Lab
Client: NYC Economic Development Corp
5th Avenue in NYC is a major commercial and tourist corridor; boasting retailers, major landmarks, and holiday destinations. It is also a street, with foot traffic upwards of 20,000 on a given day. However, there are no benches, no places to eat, vacant storefronts, and a ever-growing street vendor economy that loves 5th Ave, but is not loved back. 5th Ave is currently undergoing a street redesign, and Gehl was tasked with imagining what the surrounding pedestrian spaces could look like.
My role was leading the observation study of 5th Ave. During both the summer and the holiday season, myself, my team, and volunteers went out and studied how people moved up and down 5th Ave: where they chose to sit, where they stopped to check their phone, how many people walked down segments of the street across a day. We also studied other infrastructure that affects the passerby's experience: street vendors, building facades, sights and sounds. This led to a comprehensive report and recommendations given to NYC EDC for their greater effort to redesign the avenue.
Forest Park Middle School Design Charette
Co-design
Project With: National Design Alliance
Client: Forest Park Middle School
Forest Park Middle School in Forest Park, GA was receiving a whole new state-of-the-art school building, but they wanted to figure out how the building can be more than just an educational institution, but serve a greater purpose for its community. I was selected by the ____, along with a handful of other urban planners, architects, policy advisors, and community activists, to help school staff and students realize just how their school can be a beacon for community growth. This project was a 3-day design charette.
My role was to work directly with students, teachers, and staff on what they envision the future of their new school to be. New learning programs for students and adults, connecting nearby businesses to their school for early job experience, supporting a new STEAM direction, green fingers into their neighboring parks and open spaces.
Urban designer + planner
Data strategist
Community engagement specialist
I am a multi-disciplinary urbanist based in Brooklyn, NY. I currently work for the NYC Innovation Team within the Mayor's Office of the City of New York.
I want to help design more equitable, empathetic, playful, empowering, affordable, accessible, and inspiring cities for the people who live in them. I do this by working directly with people, then translate their challenges and insights into design and policy innovations.