EVENT DESCRIPTION
Course IV alumni are active in many professions and industries. We are architects, designers, builders, educators, innovators, community activists. Our young graduates continue to explore the possibilities as they put their design education to work. Please join us as four of our MIT10-ers (graduated within the last 10 years) share their achievements and the different career trajectories they have each forged in their corner of the world.
EVENT PANELISTS
The panelists for this event will be:
Ana Vargas, SMArchS '14 | Trazando Espacios
Catherine Winfield, MArch '13 | Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Matthew Bunza, MArch '13 | Metaamo
Sunnie S. Y. Lau, MArch '13 | MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node
The conversation will be moderated by Marilys Nepomechie MArch ‘83.
See below for the panelists’ bios.
EVENT NOTES
The event is free for all MIT alumni and current students. Click the Register button to receive the Zoom link for the event.
MITArchA members will be able to access the recorded webinar on MITArchA's Infinite Connection site.
PANELIST BIOS
Ana Vargas, SMArchS '14 | Trazando Espacios
Ana Vargas is an architect and urban designer based in Caracas, Venezuela. She has lived and worked in Italy, India and the US. She obtained her degree in architecture from the Central University of Venezuela (2010) and her Masters in Architecture and Urbanism from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 2014).
Ana is founder and director of "Trazando Espacios", a non-profit organization focused on transforming public spaces with children by teaching them architectural design skills to strengthen local identity and ownership. In 2014, she won the Dubai International Best Practices Award for proposing the Tracing Public Spaces method as an academic thesis. Since then, Trazando Espacios have been awarded several prizes including the AFIELD Fellowship in 2018. She has been invited to present her work in multiple international forums, such as the World Economic Forum (2017).
Ana also leads her own professional practice which is focused on projects related to architecture with social impact and participatory urban design. She is currently a professor and researcher at the Institute of Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture of the Central University of Venezuela. She serves on the board of directors of the MIT Club of Venezuela.
Catherine Winfield, MArch '13 | Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Catherine Winfield focuses on leading creative teams that help people. Catherine believes in using design skills for good and hopes to challenge others to do the same. At present Catherine leads a powerfully talented team of designers, researchers, and content strategists at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative who work passionately on designing for social impact. Previously she was the Design Director at Foundation Medicine leading a team who designed for one of the world's biggest problems, cancer.
Catherine has also led research and design teams at the startup Quanttus, a wearable tech company in the cardiology space, and led a team of designers at a lab at MIT post-graduation. Tackling big problems that matter is what gets her out of bed in the morning.
Matthew Bunza, MArch '13 | Metaamo
Matthew Bunza is a designer and educator, dedicated to the creation of meaningful environments and unique spatial experience. He co-founded Metaamo – a process-driven design practice working at the intersections of buildings, cities, landscapes, and ecologies – as an international platform for bridging oppositions across practice and theory; poetics and pragmatics; east and west; and high-end with high-impact.
Matt holds a B.A. from Portland State University (’08), and an M.Arch ADV with Certificate in Urban Design (‘13) from MIT, where he was a Merit Fellow, received the Floyd A. Naramore Scholarship and the Harold Horowitz Research Award, was a finalist for the Rosemary Grimshaw Thesis-Prep Award, and upon graduation won the Alpha Rho Chi Medal and was appointed to the faculty. Matt has held academic appointments as a Lecturer at MIT and a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of Oregon and Wuhan University, among others. He has studied in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, China, and Japan; was born in Boston, and grew up in urban Oregon, suburban Arizona, and rural Massachusetts.
Sunnie S. Y. Lau, MArch '13 | MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node
Sunnie S.Y. Lau is Director of Smart City Research and Industry Collaborations – MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node.
Sunnie graduated with a B.A in Architecture from University of California, Berkeley; and later on obtained her Master of Architecture, and Certificate in Urban Design from M.I.T. Her international experiences begun with renowned architectural practices prior to postgraduate study at the M.I.T.; she worked with Morphosis Architects L.A., MVRDV Rotterdam, on international competitions, cultural projects and large scale urban developments. Her academic research focuses on smart city - Inclusive innovation for communities, urban master planning, urban mobility and smart infrastructure, architectural and urban typologies with an interest in creative and innovative sustainable design strategies (SDGs).
Marilys R. Nepomechie, M.Arch '83 | Moderator
Marilys R. Nepomechie, M.Arch '83, is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives in the College of Architecture + The Arts at Florida International University.
Her writing, research, urban design, and building projects focus on the cultural, social, and environmental contexts of design.