Nazia Hasan

Nazia Hasan says she is, “fueled by the passion for research in the field of architecture and urban design”. Her motivation to extend her knowledge led her to pursue a Master’s degree. Having lived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a city that struggled with complex urban issues common to most of the megacities around the globe, Professor Raven’s extensive contribution to sustainable urban design inspired her to join NYIT’s Urban Design Program. As an undergraduate student, Nazia completed several internships with architecture firms in Dhaka. She also volunteered in flood recovery and mitigation projects for local government and communities. During the 2015 Summer break, she worked as a Planning Intern with Randal’s Island Park Alliance. While there she completed contextual analysis around RIPA’s current projects, with focus on connecting to communities in the South Bronx. Nazia Hasan presented at the Sustainable Megacities Conference in Beijing, China, 2015 to a US-Chinese audience of international sustainability researchers and experts. She focused on NYIT Urban Design Studio’s testing the emerging EcoDistrict framework, specifically how students in the MAURD program conduct new methods of design process and how this helps confront many complexities in the development of the urban design process.

Loris Autovino

Loris Autovino‘s passion and curiosity for architecture inspired him to live in various cities such as Edinburgh, Barcelona, and now New York City were he will complete his Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Design. Loris’s work experience consists of collaborating with two architectural firms, where he carried out different tasks such as designing facades, frames, and furniture. As a second semester graduate student, Loris accepted an internship position as a Junior Urban Designer with the Department of City planning of New York (DCP). During his internship he,” learned from experienced professionals how to deal with communities, zoning, resiliency and flexible design. The DCP team was mainly composed [of] architects and urban planners specialized in resiliency”. While working with DCP, Loris started to develop design proposals and research on sites such as Lower Concourse and Jerome Avenue Studies in the Bronx. He worked directly with DCP leadership to pursue committee goals, met and coordinated with different cities agencies, developed events for local communities, designed 3d models related to the site, created massing exercises, and more.

Evelyn Thomas

Evelyn Thomas first became aware of urban design as an undergraduate while working on the redevelopment of a town. This experience taught her the importance of fieldwork and she developed an understanding of an important role that design and planning played in shaping for both the physical and social aspects of cities and communities. Evelyn explains “Architecture involves a team of contractors, consultants, and craftsman who work on a building or open space to achieve the greatest possible results and to impact the communities by providing effective planning strategies that can have a positive effect on the welfare of the people”.

Having lived in diverse countries such as Dubai, Nigeria, South Africa and India, Evelyn has had the opportunity to reflect upon extrinsic lifestyles and fully engage herself in those cultural pursuits that helped evolve her own creativity. Furthermore, traveling is a great interest of hers; she tries to explore as many communities as possible wherever she visits. “This has helped broaden my horizons and open my mind to myriad types of architectural styles and other forms of design- whether it was a building, a person or nature.”

Evelyn was awarded an internship at the Department of City Planning (Manhattan Borough Office) as an Urban Design Intern coordinating and contributing to production of presentations, documentation of existing conditions, urban design analyses and proposals. She also conducts an individual short urban design research project on an area of interest to the department and works with other team members, coordinating with the technical divisions of the department and other city agencies.

Evelyn also presented at the Provost Discovery Luncheon at NYIT’s Old Westbury campus in 2015 to an audience of NYIT faculty and researchers across multiple disciplines. She focused on the NYIT Graduate Urban Climate Lab, and student research for the Assessment Report for Climate Change in Cities. Evelyn has joined the NYC Department of City Planning as an intern.