Featured
Artist, writer, and neighborhood activist Tim Gilman-Sevcik has been actively involved in Red Hook’s recovery effort since Superstorm Sandy. A professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, he focuses on social impact and communications, while researching, writing, and practicing institutional formation and transformation as an art form.
Ms. Nandan is an architect, designer, educator, and leader in community resilience planning and design. She is a co-founder and principal of the award-winning design firm thread collective, co-chair of the Resilient Red Hook Committee, and a visiting associate professor at Pratt Institute GCPE and the School for Visual Arts. Ms. Nandan believes in resiliency and sustainable design as an elastic and supple approach, integrating social, cultural, and economic issues with high design principles to create innovative net-positive urban environments.
Ron Shiffman (FAICP, NYS HON. AIA) is a city planner with close to 60 years of experience providing architectural, planning, community economic development, and sustainable development assistance to community-based groups in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. In 1964, Ron Shiffman co-founded the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development [PICCED], which is today the oldest continuously operated university-based community design and development center in the United States.
David is an entrepreneur, educator, Industrial designer, and engineer specializing in the design, installation, and project management of off-grid renewable energy systems. He’s a founding member of Power Rockaways Resilience; honored as White House Champions of Change after Hurricane Sandy. He is dedicated to the cultivation of a local green workforce collaborating with domestic and international nonprofits and developing curriculum around various sustainable technologies. He has taught at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Pace University, Solar 1, and Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School.
Currently Senior Economic Officer at the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, Carter is an urban planner with more than twenty years of experience specializing in water, education, transportation, and land use in and around New York City.
Chris is an Associate at WXY Studio where he leads community engagement, planning, and design projects. Chris’ recent work includes serving as the Project Manager for the D15 Diversity Plan, the NYC Department of Education’s first community-based engagement process to create racially and socioeconomically integrated middle schools in Brooklyn’s District 15. Chris is interested in using the tools of urban planning and design to address racial and social inequities. In 2015, he co-founded BlackSpace, a collective of Black urban planners and designers who demand a present and future, where Black People, Black Spaces, and Black culture matter and thrive. Chris holds a BA from Oberlin College and a Masters in Urban Planning from the Pratt Institute.
As Senior National Program Director – Resilience and Disaster Recovery, Enterprise Community Partners M.U.P., Laurie Schoeman Enterprise’s efforts to preserve and protect affordable housing across the nation from the risks and impacts of natural hazards and a changing climate.
Nicole began her career in education at PS23Q, a District 75 school for students with special needs in Bellerose NY, as a school aide and later family worker in charge of parent outreach for special education services. In 2001, Nicole became a special education teacher, teacher leader and committee coordinator at PS78Q in Long Island City. In 2009, Nicole became a school administrator and now serves as the assistant principal at PS676 The Red Hook Neighborhood School where she helps build a nurturing and supportive culture to educate our future leaders.
Cat Fitzgerald is a freelance researcher and customer experience consultant. She travels around the country talking to people and working hard to make digital experiences better for everybody. She has worked extensively with credit unions, retail, travel, technology, media, and other financial services businesses. She got involved in the local sustainability space and green professional development as the volunteer executive director and board member of GreenHomeNYC from 2004-2014.
Will is an architect, designer and entrepreneur dedicated to the intersection of architecture and technology, as an aesthetic, educational and informational expansion of the field. Having practiced for large architecture firms including Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Will founded Microscapes and TO+WN DESIGN to further his interest in designing and building at more intimate scales utilizing emerging technologies such as 3D printing, projection mapping and product design. Will studied at Penn State and Columbia University, and has taught at Parsons the New School for Design.
Allison Scollar is a consultant and helps people achieve their dreams. In the past five years she has consulted for a CBD company and facilitated national sales. Presently, she is consulting and developing a NFT platform that is disrupting the art market. Allison is a passionate mom and she is passionate to help RETI’s achieve its mission of that is dedicated to building strength in communities through resiliency focused economic development.