Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Caits Meissner

Caits Meissner is a New York City-based writer, multidisciplinary creator and educator. She is the author of the illustrated hybrid poetry book Let It Die Hungry (The Operating System, 2016), and The Letter All Your Friends Have Written You (Well&Often, 2012), co-written with poet Tishon Woolcock. She has taught, consulted and co-created extensively for over 15 years across a wide spectrum of communities, with a special focus on imprisoned people, women and youth. Caits holds a BFA in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York. She currently serves as the Prison and Justice Writing Program Manager at PEN America.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is a visual storyteller who creates tools for participation in collaboration with social justice organizations. She also consults with cultural institutions, education non-profits, and others on community engagement and youth education. Valeria was formerly the Deputy Director of CUP, where over the course of eight years she created popular education tools with community-based organizations and developed curricula to help public high school students change the way the see their own neighborhoods. She has shared her thoughts on project-based learning, collaboration, and design for social impact at places like the New Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, and institutions from Indianapolis to Rotterdam. Valeria holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media.

Oscar Nuñez

Oscar was a Community Education Program Manager at CUP. He is a graduate of the City and Regional Planning Master’s Program at Pratt Institute with a concentration on Community Development. While completing his studies at Pratt, Oscar worked and interned in various local community organizations and groups, including CUP, on issues dealing with planning, design, and community education and engagement. Previously, he received a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.  Originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and French and can give pretty good directions in Portuguese.

Dillon de Give

Dillon de Give is an artist and educator who acts in a spirit of humane experimentalism. His projects set a stage for subtle alterations to everyday social performances and expose novel and equitable methods for distributing an experience of art. Dillon holds a BS in Radio/Television/Film from Northwestern University and an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University.  He is a co-founder of the Walk Exchange, a cooperative walking group. He organizes the annual Coyote Walk Itinerancy, a retreat that traces a path between New York City and the wild.  Dillon worked with CUP to produce the videos “Common Cents,” “Now Boarding,” and “Who Rules?”

Kevin Cadena

Kevin Cadena is a Colombian-American designer, creative technologist, community organizer and artist who is currently based in Queens, NY. Kevin intersects these mediums together in different ways to critique, enforce or speculate on culture, conventions, and ethics in his environment. Kevin graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016 with a BFA in graphic design and since then, he has worked with many different organizations ranging from research labs and design agencies to museums and co-working spaces. In his free time, he enjoys supporting local music, playing video games, watching basketball, and organizing his room.

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Fielding Hong

Fielding is a Youth Education Program Manager at CUP. He has over 10 years of experience as a youth educator working at the intersections of history, the arts, and social justice. Fielding has worked as both a high school history teacher in Philadelphia and a museum educator in New York. He holds a B.A. in Film Studies from Wesleyan University, a teaching degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s in Culture and Gender Studies from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. 

Ilaria Ortensi

Ilaria Ortensi is an artist and art educator with an interest in architecture, urban landscape and the representation of contemporary spaces. She uses both documentation and fiction to create images that viewers are encouraged to question. Born in Italy, she received her MFA from Columbia University in 2015 and is currently part of the Hercules Art/Studio Program in Long Island City, NY.

Leigh Taylor

Leigh was CUP’s Development & Program Coordinator. She is a recent graduate from Bard College, where she studied Sociology with a focus on Gender & Labor. Following college, Leigh has worked for organizations invested in social justice education for young people, specifically youth from historically marginalized communities. She is involved in movements of justice for domestic workers, incarcerated folks, and young people of color. She is excited to work with CUP to create accessible tools for people from communities like hers.

Pilar Finuccio

Pilar Finuccio is a Community Education Program Manager at CUP.  She is a visual designer and researcher with a commitment to creative practice and social justice. She spends her time advocating for the creation and preservation of communities, exploring methods of collaboration, and working on her listening skills. Before joining CUP, she was a Design Research Fellow at Public Policy Lab, a Communications Designer for The Department of Small Business Services’ Neighborhood Development Division, and the In-house Graphic Designer for O, Miami Poetry Festival. She received her MFA  in Design for Social Innovation from the School of Visual Arts and her BFA in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University’s  College of Design. When she’s not at CUP, she’s selling vegetables for Conuco Farm at the Ft. Greene Farmers Market or fixing something her dog, Roz, chewed.

Siyona Ravi

Siyona is CUP’s Program & Communications Coordinator. Before joining CUP, she worked on several creative advocacy projects, including the Fundred Project, a campaign led by artist Mel Chin, and a documentary film for a TGNC branch of a sex workers’ labor union in Kolkata, India. In 2019 she was a Create Change Fellow with the Laundromat Project. She holds a BA in Visual Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She was born in Bangalore, grew up in Chicago, and now lives Crown Heights, where you can find her making a mess in the kitchen. 

Clara Amenyo

Clara was the Program Manager for CUP’s Public Access Design program from 2012 to 2014. Before coming to CUP, she worked in Structured Credit for Barclays Capital. Clara has a Bachelor of the Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.

Damayan Migrant Workers Association

DAMAYAN is a 10-year old grassroots, membership-based organization of low-income Filipino im/migrant workers, primarily women domestic workers. DAMAYAN organizes Filipino workers to defend their rights and to understand and challenge the root causes of forced migration and poverty. Through its programs and campaigns, DAMAYAN has effectively addressed exploitation, health problems and gender violence against Filipino women domestic workers. It uses solid organizing to combine political analysis and education with services, basebuilding, leadership development, and advocacy. It is a democratic organization with a wide base of over 800 members and an elected Board of Directors of all women domestic workers. DAMAYAN worked with CUP on Work Forced, a video about the labor trafficking of Filipino domestic workers.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

All Other Services

All Other Services is a multidisciplinary design team working to enrich arts and advocacy projects. Through design, we collaborate to understand social conditions and develop communications that promote collective empowerment. Founded by Joel Stillman and Kevin Wade Shaw, All Other Services produces work which ranges from identity, strategy, and awareness to interaction, service and product design. Selected experience includes IDEO, MoMA, The New York Times, Pentagram, Ralph Appelbaum and Associates, and Project Projects.

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over fifteen years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she was identified as one of the “Public Interest Design 100.” She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Ingrid Haftel

Ingrid was the Community Education Program Director for CUP. Before CUP, she was Curator of Exhibitions at the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), Chicago’s leading forum for the exchange of ideas on urban design. While at CAF, Ingrid developed major exhibitions that helped public audiences think critically about complex issues related to urban planning and architecture. Ingrid received her B.A. in English and Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington, and her M.A. in Humanities from the University of Chicago.