URBAN DESIGN LAB - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Research Scientist

Amy Motzny holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and is currently a full-time Research Scientist working jointly with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Earth Institute's Urban Design Lab. She is part of a multidisciplinary group of researchers, scientists, and practitioners investigating urban green infrastructure (GI) planning and design strategies. Her research focuses on the development of spatial modeling tools for evaluating ecosystem service benefits of urban green infrastructure and she is particularly interested in the socio-cultural services that GI can provide to communities.

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Assistant

Harsha Devulapalli has a Bachelors in Technology from Koneru Lakshmaiah University in Vijayawada, India and graduated from the Columbia University Lede Program in the Columbia Journalism School. Harsha has conducted numerous projects in both India and New York City. Previously, Harsha served as a Research Associate for the Hyderabad Urban Lab in Hyderabad, India. There he handled the data and maps capabilities. He was also responsible for generating, cleaning, processing, and visualizing data, and conducted spatial and data training for new recruits. At Columbia University, he conducted GIS workshops with the head librarians as a Spatial Research Intern. At the Urban Design Lab, Harsha is participating in the ongoing research on Cognitive Mapping and BioSmiles.

Job Titles:

• Spatial Planning and Design Associate
• Urban Designer

Trained as an Architect and Urban Designer, Isabel has always been inspired by the developing trajectories of contemporary cities and the possibility of data visualization as a tool to reach an integrative understanding of societies. Isabel believes that the Architect and Urban Designer should go beyond the boundaries of their profession, using design as a medium to engage and empower communities. She collaborated in the research project for the Sustainable Cities and the Compact and Sustainable Neighborhoods (University of Cuenca, Ecuador); she also worked as a researcher for the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory with the project "Legacy of UN Peace Operations in Liberia". Isabel was awarded the first prize in the competition Dencity 2017 by Shelter Global; she is a recipient of an honorable mention (2012) and the national prize (2016) in the Quito's Panamerican Biennial of Architecture; and received two honorable mentions in the contest for social housing projects for Quito in 2010.

Job Titles:

• Senior Program Manager
• Journalist

Maria Paola Sutto is a biologist and a journalist. Her research interests focus on environmental impacts at different scales, from molecular markers to the organized urban systems that allow human species to develop. She moved to the United States in 1992 as foreign correspondent for the emerging field of multimedia (1993-2001), writing extensively for all aspects of urban life. In Italy, she began her career as research scientist for molecular transport mechanisms in diabetes and she has applied those skills in multiple ways and in a variety of fields, including environmental consulting, publishing, and, for a decade, as a theatre director in Rome, before joining the Urban Design Lab in 2008. Among Sutto's activities have been the establishment of: the Sullivan County Green Energy Fair, which pioneered locally-based green enterprise (2007); the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition (2005); and, together with other scientists, the Columbia Green Roof Consortium (2009). She is an active promoter of initiatives that foster effective research, such as New York City's Town + Gown initiative, which coordinates the research platform between city agencies and national academic institutions, and she is the co-editor with Richard Plunz of Urban Climate Change Crossroads (2010).

Job Titles:

• DIRECTOR
• Director, Urban Design Lab / Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Columbia University

Richard Plunz is a leading figure in urban design and one of the world's leading authorities in urban housing: His Housing Studios, which he developed at Columbia are now an integral part of architectural curricula everywhere. Plunz moved to Columbia University in 1974 and in 1977 became chairperson of the Division of Architecture, with oversight on the renewal of the professional Master's curriculum. Since 1992, he has been director of the Urban Design Program, one of the most substantive curricula in the field. His research into the evolution of housing in New York City has led to a number of projects including his landmark study, A History of Housing in New York City (1990). In his long term research interests, Plunz completed: a 14 year project on the urban expropriation of the Adirondack High Peaks region in Upstate New York with the help of the J. M. Kaplan Fund and others; a threedecade study of physical and social transformation at Turgutreis, in Bodrum District on the Turkish Aegean coast. The study was in part supported by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. In 2005, Plunz was appointed director of the Urban Design Lab (UDL) at Columbia's Earth Institute. After receiving professional degrees in engineering and in architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Plunz specialized in urbanism related to both urban history and application of cybernetic and information theory to urban development. Plunz has held professorships at Rensselaer, Pennsylvania State University, Columbia University, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Belgium, and has taught and lectured extensively and internationally. At Rensselaer and Penn State, Plunz developed pioneering research in hospital design and public secondary education related to inner city contexts. With the support of the United States Public Health Service, he conducted pioneering research in digitized environmental modeling for the low income neighborhood of Mantua, in West Philadelphia. He has developed anthropological field techniques toward built form considerations and initiated long-held research interests related to housing design and development of sustainable higher density alternatives to the suburban single family house. Plunz continued his involvement in the anthropology of building with an extensive study on the two century transformation of a utopian industrial community of San Leucio, Caserta, in Southern Italy. Plunz's work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the J. M. Kaplan Fund, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Aga Kahn Award for Architecture, the United States Public Health Service, and the Ford Foundation. In 1991, he received the Andrew J. Thomas Award - Pioneer in Housing from the American Institute of Architects. The author of many articles, studies, and reports, among Plunz's publications are many books, including A History of Housing in New York City (1990), translated in French and Japanese; The Urban Lifeworld: Formation, Perception, Representation (2002); After Shopping (2003); and Eco-Gowanus: Urban Remediation by Design (2007). His most recent co-edited book is Urban Climate Change Crossroads (2010).

Job Titles:

• Developer
• Research Affiliate

Roy Pachecano is an entrepreneur, a developer, and an innovator. He is the founder of Portico R.E.I. LLC ("Portico"). As a hands-on developer, he represents prominent clients

Job Titles:

• Researcher
• Senior Research Assistant

Yijia Zhou is a researcher whose primary interest is the quantitative analysis of social science data. Yijia earned a Master's in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University in 2017, and holds a Bachelor's in Communication Studies from University of Michigan. She is particularly focused in analyzing social media discourse with machine learning methods as a way to understand how the cyberspace interacts with real space.