We want to thank all of our alumni participants in the spring 2021 Tuesday Talks program. We were grateful to include alumni from across the different programs, as well as those throughout the US and various international locations. Students continue to report how impactful these conversations are during this time of uncertainty, and we are grateful to you. March 2021 marked our one year anniversary for these talks and the demand for mentorship has remained high. To volunteer as a Tuesday Talk mentor, send a note to gsappalumni@columbia.edu with your job title, company name, and location. 

We are pleased to announce the launch of Avery Workshops, a series of professional development programs designed to build and strengthen skills valued in the evolving workplace. The series is sponsored by the Alumni and Professional Development Committee of the GSAPP Alumni Board and represents an ongoing commitment to the success of our alumni community.

Registration for the first two programs is now open:

Avery Workshop: Transitioning to a New Role
Monday, May 10
6 to 7:30pm EDT

Executive Coach Patricia Hayling Price leads a personal leadership workshop for professionals transitioning to a new role at their company. This is an interactive workshop limited to 30 participants for a nominal fee.

Registrants will be asked to submit a current CV and description of your current and new role. Register here >>

Avery Workshop: Leading an Entrepreneurial Venture
Monday, May 24
6 to 7:30pm EDT

Executive Coach Patricia Hayling Price leads a leadership workshop for professionals preparing to launch their own entrepreneurial venture. This is an interactive workshop. This is an interactive workshop limited to 30 participants for a nominal fee.

Registrants will be asked to submit a current CV and description of the new venture. Register here >>

GSAPP will host commencement on Thursday, April 29. Alumni are invited to submit photos or video for inclusion in the 2021 commencement celebration, including but not limited to the commencement day virtual event and Columbia’s social media. Mors details are available on the submission form.

If your firm is in a position to expand its team, please considering hiring from the GSAPP community. Post job opportunities, from full-time or part-time positions to summer internships, directly on the Engage jobs platform or contact a career services team member. More information can be found on this page.

Interested in joining the Board? Nominations are currently being accepted through April 30 from alumni across all programs, generations, and geography. The Alumni Board particularly seeks nominations with demonstrated leadership and dedication to GSAPP, as well as a commitment to the GSAPP Anti Racism Action Plan.

Submit a GSAPP Alumni Board Nomination.

The Arch+Design Mentorship Program matches current M.Arch, MSAAD and MSAUD students with GSAPP Alumni. Mentors help students explore their career interests, discuss the transition from academic to the professional world and provide guidance with the job searching process. Students and mentors are asked to meet at least twice a semester. Interested alumni can contact Karen Cover to sign up.

This year, GSAPP is dedicating all annual fund contributions towards tuition relief for current students, unless otherwise directed by the donor. If you are in a position to support students in this way, please consider making a gift today. Gifts can be made online at this link.

Alumni Voices is a CAA initiative that allows Columbia graduates to voice their opinions on a variety of alumni-related topics and programs. Previous topics include alumni benefits, the CAA Shop, entrepreneurship, and the arts at Columbia. Panelists complete brief surveys throughout the year, and the feedback helps shape alumni activities and opportunities across the University. Sign up for the program.

On March 20, Historic Preservation students joined Professor Andrew Dolkart for a walking tour of the southern half of Brooklyn Heights. The tour marked a chance for students who had taken Dolkart’s Spring 2021 elective course Architecture & Development of New York City a chance to see some incredible examples of nineteenth century New York residential architecture up close–not to mention some great Gothic Revival churches from both sides of the notorious Ecclesiological Movement debate! Photo credit: Chris Kumardjaja HP/M.Arch, Class of ‘24

MSRED students examine the excavation part of the construction process during a site tour in Queens, NY for Construction Management with faculty John Lyons. Photo credit: Lavy Rosenthal MSRED, Class of 2021

Students from the fall Urban Design Studio exploring Kingsbridge Terrace in the Bronx. Photo credit: Adjunct Assistant Professor Nans Voron @nansvor

We are excited to share that recent alumni Yasmin Ben Ltaifa ‘21 M.Arch, Sushmita Shekar '20 MSAUD, Guillermo Hevia Garcia '20 MSAAD, and Alek Tomich '21 M.Arch are among Metropolis Magazine’s “Future 100” feature. View highlights of their work here.

Columbia GSAPP is proud to announce Caitlyn Campbell ‘21 MSCCCP as one of this year’s Campbell Award recipients. The Campbell Award, which is presented to a graduating student at each School who shows exceptional leadership and Columbia spirit as exemplified by the late Bill Campbell '62CC, '64TC, Chair Emeritus, University Trustee and CAA co-founder.

Read about Cait’s contributions as well as those of her fellow awardees.

Wenjuan Li ‘21 MSAUD is part of the student team named 2021 ULI Hines Competition Finalist for their proposal EAVIRO District Development Plan. Learn more about the project submission for the prestigious annual competition.

Climate models for Sub-Saharan African countries are wildly inaccurate due to little to no reliable climate-related data available for climatologists and other professionals. This has huge development implications for the continent that has the most to lose economically, socially, and environmentally from a climate insecure future.

ClimHub is a platform that seeks to solve this problem by organizing and centralizing already-existing historical climate-related datasets online while providing a tool for crowd-sourcing data and case studies across the sub-continent.

Uncut Lab, the developers of the ClimHub prototype, are seeking testers. This includes:

Any individual who works in the sectors below and is located in any country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Potential testers from the United States or the United Kingdom that are focused on West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, or Senegal) that work in the following spaces:

• climate research
  
• data science statistics
  
• academics (students, professional staff, or faculty)
  
• conservation science
• environmental science
  
• public health
  
• nonprofits focused on agriculture, the environment, public health, or sanitation
  
• climate change policy
  
• urban or city planning

If you are interested in testing, please sign up.

Sika Sedzro ‘13 MSUP is the founder and CEO of Uncut Lab, a Boston-based cloud-computing firm that specializes in developing custom applications that leverage blockchain technology to solve complex problems.

Private Tour of
The 13th Shanghai Biennale: *Bodies of Water*
Thursday, April 22
11 AM China Standard Time

Andrés Jaque, Associate Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program, is the Chief Curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale: Bodies of Water.

On April 22, Andrés will lead a private tour of the exhibition for Columbia GSAPP students and alumni. The tour will take place on site at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, China.

Learn more about the exhibition here and here.

To RSVP, please send your name, email, and phone number to leslie.kuo@columbia.edu.

April 22, 10:30am
Virtual

A discussion among GSAPP Dean Amale Andraos; Carol Becker, Dean of Faculty at Columbia University School of the Arts; and Rui Costa, Director and CEO of Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, moderated by Safwan M. Masri, Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development. The discussion will address topics such as:

• How does studying architecture and design, art, and neuroscience, respectively, shape consciousness?
• What are the key elements and attributes of thinking embedded in each of these disciplines that, over years of study, come to affect the way in which we calibrate the world?
• What is particularly valuable for this time in each of these unique approaches? What can we glean from the fundamentals of each that can help us to transform society?
  

Organized by Columbia Global Centers as parts of its University Leadership Series.

Columbia GSAPP invites our community of students, faculty, alumni, friends and family for an around-the world tour of architectural design practice featuring 22 speakers representing 11 countries: Australia, Germany, Greece, Haiti, India, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Alumni practitioners will present during three sessions throughout the day.

Register here >>

Organized by the MSAAD Class of 2006 on the occasion of their 15 Year Reunion.

Assistant Professor Ziad Jamaleddine delivers a lecture on “Drawing the Isolated Mosque” hosted by Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archeology on April 20 at 1PM. Details and and registration here.

Assistant Professor Lola Ben-Alon delivers the lecture “Natural Buildings: Integrating Earthen Building Materials and Methods Into Mainstream Construction” as part of the Living Future Conference 2021 on April 22 at 11:30AM. Details here.

Ware Professor Emeritus Kenneth Frampton delivers the Robert Maxwell Memorial Lecture “Reflections on the predicament of architecture: Seven points in Retrospect” at the University of Liverpool on April 22 at 6PM BST/1PM EDT. Details here and registration here.

The Urban China Network, GSAPP Urban Planning Program, and Columbia Global Centers | Beijing announce a call for creative essays and design projects that identify urban issues and solutions related to COVID-19 in China. Details here.

From lectures to tours, conferences and symposia, GSAPP is proud to have hosted high quality programs for our community across a range of topics related to the built environment. Below is a selection of recent events that you may have missed or wish to revisit:

Planning Futures? On Decolonial, Postcolonial,
and Abolitionist Planning
A one-day conference organized by Assistant Professor Hiba Bou Akar, brought together leading planning and urban scholars who are re-thinking the field of urban planning and policy from postcolonial, decolonial, and abolitionist perspectives.
Recorded on March 12

Stop. Go. Pivot.
The Annual Master of Science in Real Estate Development Conference
Recorded on March 26 and 27

Tour and History of Columbia University
with Untapped New York
Presented as part of Across Columbia: Building and Belonging Together
Recorded on April 12

For alumni programming beyond GSAPP, please visit Bringing Columbia to You for ongoing opportunities for engagement and an archive of past programs you may have missed.