2020 Graduate Certificate Recipients

Find out more about the Graduate Certificate here.

Alexandra Appelbaum

PhD City and Regional Planning
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
The City, Arts, and Public Space (core seminar)
Infrastructure Imaginaries: Informal Urbanism, Creativity and Ecology in Lagos, Nigeria (core studio)
Frankfurt School, New York School: Critical Aesthetics and Modern Poetry, COMPLIT 225/CRITICAL THEORY 205

 

Pol Fité Matamoros

PhD Landscape Architecture
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Berlin: The Guilt Environment (core studio)
Urban Theory, CYPLAN 284
The Anthropology of Politics, ANTHRO 250E

Pol Fité Matamoros is pursuing a PhD in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, as recipient of the Regent’s Fellowship. His research focuses on the dialectical relationship between political-economic transformations and the production of space, particularly centered in late-dictatorial regimes in the European South. His recent research collaborations include Research Associate of the Critical Landscapes Lab for the project Atlas for a City-Region: Imagining the Post-Brexit Landscapes of the Irish Northwest and Communications Manager of the Urban Theory Lab, both at the Harvard GSD.

Beatriz Guerrero Auna

Master's in City Planning
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
The Demos: Politics, Art and the City (core seminar)
Infrastructure Imaginaries: Informal Urbanism, Creativity and Ecology in Lagos, Nigeria (core studio)
Implementation: Key Issues in Managing California Cities, PUBPOL 290.2

 

Natalie Koski-Karell

Master's in City Planning
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Berlin: The Guilt Environment (core studio)
East Bay Revolution: Urban Spaces of Protest and Counterculture Practice, AMERSTD 102/ENVDES 109
Extracurricular art and performance activities

Natalie completed the Master of City Planning program, where she has a dual focus in environmental planning and urban design. Her academic research & professional work touches many elements of the built environment, and spans themes of social, environmental & economic sustainability and resilience. In the fall she hosted a panel on indigenous land rights and stewardship, and is planning to contribute to a study of cannabis cultivation effects on Klamath River watersheds on behalf of the Yurok Tribe. As a social impact artist, she most recently contributed an installation to the Albany Bulb as part of the Love the Bulb fest, and is working on a medicinal planter box for the Blake Garden and/or UCB campus as part of a Diversity Platform Initiative. Natalie cultivates an embodied practice of dance, improvisation, and storytelling and in the last year has performed in San Francisco & Istanbul. 

Monica Lamela Blazquez

MS Architecture
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Berlin: The Guilt Environment (core studio)
Foundations in Performance Theory, THEATER 201A
Racial Landscapes: Past, Present and Future, LDARCH 254

Diana Ruiz

PhD Film & Media
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Mexico City: Spaces/Cultures/Histories (core seminar)
Mexico City: Materiality, Performance and Power (core studio)
Time Matters/Time as Critique, SPANISH 280

 

Aaron Scherf

Master's in Development Practice
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
The Demos: Politics, Art and the City (core seminar)
Berlin: The Guilt Environment (core studio)
Data Planning for Human Mobility and Sociotechnical Systems, CYPLAN 257

Aaron Scherf believes that our best response to the interrelated challenges facing humanity is to innovate with collaborative, interdisciplinary ideas. As a student of development practice, Aaron seeks to address gaps in the economic, health, and environmental systems that underpin our cities and societies. Following their graduation in May of 2020, Aaron will be entering the US Agency for International Development as a Foreign Service Officer, where they hope to apply many of the creative methods and concepts learned through the Global Urban Humanities program to guide more inclusive and effective development assistance.

 

Desmond Sheehan

PhD Music/Musicology
Global Urban Humanities Initiative courses taken:
Berlin: The Guilt Environment (core studio)
Readings in Music, Capitalism and Materialism, MUSIC 220
Music, Sound and Secularity Readings, ANTHRO 602

Desmond Sheehan works on German Protestant music in historical urban environments. His research traces the aesthetic, media, and institutional transformations that musical harmony underwent around Berlin from 1760-1840. The sum total of that history pronounces an emergent secularity unique to the German city. He is also a 2020 Global Urban Humanities Fellow.

Find out more about the Graduate Certificate here.