Christina Smith — Class of 2011
Christina has been Executive Director of Groundwork Bridgeport since January 2016 and she serves on Bridgeport’s City Council representing the 130th District. We are delighted that Christina has been able to give back so much to her hometown, which was one of the reasons she enrolled in our first class.
Read her profile, contact page, and a profile article.
Samantha Irvine — Class of 2011
Samantha is part of the heritage planning team at ERA Architecture in Toronto, where she manages projects that impact culturally significant buildings, neighborhoods and landscapes. She has a special interest in the role that heritage plays in city building and is committed to creating opportunities for historic buildings to enrich urban development. Before returning to Toronto, Samantha led North American projects for the Clear Village Charitable Trust in London, and before that she was Graduate Fellow in Sustainable Urbanism at the Prince’s Foundation.
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Marlee Busching Truscott — Class of 2012
Marlee is Assistant Project Manager at the Hudson Companies Inc. Previously she worked at Town & Gardens, Ltd, where she reviewed and negotiated contracts, managed sub-contractors and tracked job profitability. Prior to that, she worked for five years in the design-build landscape industry in New York City.
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Chad Rochkind — Class of 2012
Chad is Director of Detroit’s Human Scale Studio, an internationally recognized strategy firm focused primarily on urbanism and social impact. Human Scale Studio works with innovative groups in Detroit and across the country to bring people-centric solutions to cities, neighborhoods, and social impact organizations. Chad’s work with Human Scale Studio has been recognized with a number of awards, including the YBCA 100, Metropolis Magazine’s “10 New Talents”, The Knight Cities Challenge, and Emerging Cities Champions.
Learn more about Human Scale Studio
Heather Shimmin — Class of 2012
Heather is currently working as a review coordinator for Shutterstock in New York City. She recently collaborated on the book, Roof Explorer’s Guide: 101 New York City Rooftops, a guidebook to publicly accessible rooftops in New York City, from bars and restaurants to a trapeze school and a tennis court. She is working now with the same team to publish another book on NYC rooftops. Heather wrote her M.A. thesis on London rooftops, so she is delighted to continue this interest in her professional work.
Learn more about her book
Cecil Barnes — Class of 2012
Cecil is Project Designer at Bernard Schumer Architects in New York. Cecil went on to earn his M.Arch degree from Columbia University after completing our program. Like others who have pursued professional degrees after our M.A., Cecil found that his foundation in preservation and sustainability helped inform his design practice in graduate school and beyond.
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Despina Parpas —Class of 2013
Despina is a Ph.D. candidate in Architecture at the University of Cyprus. Her research focusses on identifying variables determining successful adaptive reuse, using econometric analysis to investigate economic, environmental and social criteria contributing to successful rehabilitation. She participates in conferences and publications, including as a director of the Cyprus Architectural Association 2017 Summer Workshop.
Learn more about the Cyprus Architectural Association 2017 Summer Workshop
Nicole Sutton — Class of 2013
Nicole works at Malcolm Fryer Architects, where she focusses on adaptive reuse and historic fabric and repair based conservation work. For the last couple of years, she has focused on the Coal Drops at Kings Cross and which topped out last fall. Each summer, Nicole gives visiting lectures for the Built Heritage Conservation Training program at Banffy Castle in Transylvania. Last year, she presented on the Properties of Lime.
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Mary Dewar — Class of 2013
Mary has worked since graduation at PDP London as a designer focusing primarily on projects within the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. These ranged in scale from small building refurbishment to large scale masterplan and detailed design across six sites in Chelsea. A particular favorite from the past four years was developing detailed design of the reinstatement of eleven grade II listed townhouses in Chelsea, restoring the townhouses after decades of modification and use after they were chopped up into multiple occupation residences. Other projects of note have included adaptive reuse of a listed fire station; the large-scale redevelopment of a significant portion of the King’s Road, including an Art Deco cinema; and premium new-build townhouses in the large-scale redevelopment of the historic Chelsea Barracks site.
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Michael Hall — Class of 2013
Michael is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Architectural History at the University of Kent, Canterbury, School of Architecture. Before entering this program, Michael was Special Events Manager for the National Trust for Historic Preservation at the Philip Johnson Glass House, and he served as Director of Preservation for Friends of Upper East Side Historic Districts. Michael has also been kind enough to run our alumni Facebook page for the past few years – thank you, Michael!
Ximena Perez — Class of 2014
Ximena has worked most recently with Sotheby’s Hong Kong to promote the importance of the Grade II listed Liverpool Produce Exchange to international investors. She worked closely with architects and clients to communicate the special features of the historic property, which is about to be completed — you can find more details in the book Ximena produced, at the link below.
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Kathleen Bowens — Class of 2014
Kathleen currently works as a Preservationist at the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission. After graduation from our program, Kathleen worked at Winterthur House and Gardens as the Historical Preservationist for the property. This included everything from working on adaptive reuse projects (the Hawke Conference Center) to researching building and landscape history. Kathleen recently welcomed her first child as well — congratulations, Kathleen!
Read more about the Historic Landscape Part of Preservation Project at Winterthur
Kurt Garrison — Class of 2015
Kurt has been working as a freelance writer and designer at Vida Design in Pittsburgh since graduating from our program. This Spring he will teach a new course, Pittsburgh Architecture & Sustainability, at the Community College of Allegheny.
Nicolette Sanfilippo — Class of 2015
Nicolette works at Stok in San Francisco, developing strategic sustainability goals for real estate portfolios. She uses a holistic approach to identify sustainability solutions addressing life-cycle impacts for energy, water, waste, and healthy materials. Building upon her experience on our program, Nicolette has developed her expertise in energy assessment and rating systems including LEED and other green and healthy building rating systems.
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Rachel Robinson — Class of 2016
Rachel is Director of Preservation at the Providence Preservation Society in Rhode Island. She was formerly Executive Director of the Vieux Carre Commission Foundation and Felicity Redevelopment Inc., in New Orleans.
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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 teaching a course on architectural preservation and adaptive reuse, Heritage I, at the University of Viña del Mar. This year she will join the Europe Workshop, accompanying the class to Europe for site workshops in March 2019. Polyn is delighted to pass on to Chilean students many of the techniques and insights she learned on our M.A. program.
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Kelly Marker — Class of 2017
Kelly is Real Estate Development Project Manager at Isles, Inc. Her main project is working on adapting an old mill in Hamilton, NJ for new uses. After graduation last year, Kelly served as Fundraising and Development Intern at The Prince’s Regeneration Trust before returning to the U.S.
Learn more about The Prince’s Regeneration Trust
Monica Bacon — Class of 2017
Monica is Historic Buildings Specialist for the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii.
Madelaine Momot — Class of 2018
Madelaine earned a scholarship award from the Keepers Preservation Education Fund of the Maine Community Foundation.
Learn more about Maine Community Foundation
