Hometown

Ann Arbor MI

Undergraduate Work

Tulane University, 2007

MIT Degrees

SMArchS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Architecture), 2011
PhD Candidate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Interest Area

I'm interested in the intersections of new, networked technologies and the urban environment. We are now able to see a city and its people in real-time as we cull from the data created through the normal activities of life. The challenge, and my interest, is how we begin to "close the loop" and use these technological opportunities to impact how we use, see, plan and design the city in new ways (…real time?).

Thesis Topic

Pardon my dust, work in progress… Though it is focused on that "closing the loop" part mentioned previously.

Career Ambition

I hope to be able to blur the boundaries between the academy and practice: research in a professional firm, or the reverse with real-world engagement within the academic setting. To think, to discover, to make.

Why MIT?

MIT is a place full of misfits who do not fully fit into disciplinary compartments. There are engineers creating robots to perform in operas; urban planners data-mining; architects redesigning everything and anything that's not a building; musicians doing all of the above. The boundaries are blurry and fluid. It's like studying in a children's museum (especially around the Edgerton Labs) where all the displays are being rewritten and redesigned in real time…

Quote

"The maxim 'If we build it, they will come' has now changed. And it is now 'we will come and we will build it." -James Carville, in New Orleans.