Our people – volunteers

Jonathan Greene is an architect and designer who has taken a different philosophical approach to design. Traveling extensively he documents buildings and places, settling for short periods in places that “beg of more attention” where he temporarily puts down roots, and funnels his experience of that place into a dwelling for himself.

Kim O’Dell is the director of the Heinz Awards program, one of the projects of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Presented since 1994 to honor the life’s work of the late U.S. Sen. John Heinz, the $250,000 Awards are among the largest individual achievement prizes. They recognize remarkable contributions across a spectrum of activity – from the arts and the environment to technology and public policy. In addition to the Awards, Kim runs several other programs, including the John Heinz Senate Fellowship on issues of the Aging and the Teresa Heinz Environmental Scholarships. Prior to the Awards, Kim worked for Senator Heinz and the Heinz family in Washington, DC. She graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in business.

Abe Taleb was a volunteer at our recent brainstorming event.

Andrew Macurak is a Pittsburgh native with experience ranging from the foundation sector to the tech start-up community. Andrew's work has focused on the intersection of real estate, finance, economic development, and community capacity-building. Andrew is particularly interested in how public-private partnerships and entrepreneurship can seed self-sustaining urban economies. He believes that Pittsburgh's unique sense of place is one of its greatest and most untapped economic assets. Andrew will graduate in May 2011 with an M.S. in Public Policy & Management from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. He completed his bachelor's degree in Urban Studies, History, and Public Service summa cum laude at the University of Pittsburgh. You can view his portfolio at www.andrewmacurak.com.

Since 2007, Audrey Russo has been serving the technology business sector for Southwestern PA as President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Tech Council (PTC), the oldest (1983) and largest technology trade association in all of North America. In order to ensure the original vision of a vital innovation and technology ecosystem, Audrey has used her role to facilitate strong interaction across all business sectors of the regional economy who will only succeed and grow through technology innovation and commercialization. With a background in information technology, operations and finance, Audrey previously worked for large multi-national Fortune 500 companies (Alcoa, Reynolds Metals), as well as at MAYA Design, and in an adjunct faculty and project role at Virginia Commonwealth University. Audrey believes that vital cities are the moral imperative in achieving competitive, diverse and vibrant economies, and the complexity of Pittsburgh’s physical, literal and metaphorical terrain, has been added to her list of loves over the past ten years.

Christine Bethea is on the board of Friendship Development Associates. She is the founder and Director of GA/GI Festival, Pittsburgh's eco, art and technology event which programs the April "Unblurred" gallery crawl each year in the Penn Avenue Arts District. Ms. Bethea also runs an antique, art and collectibles shop, ARTica, and is an award-winning fiber artist and quilt historian, archived with the Senator John Heinz History Center, a Smithsonian affiliate.

Connie Cantor is a Pittsburgh based artist with a long interest in urban and neighborhood issues. An avid preservationist, she also rehabilitates small houses as live/work space for artists and other "creatives" drawn to Pittsburgh's affordability and quality of life. Cantor, a 4th generation Pittsburgher, believes that integration of young and older populations in distressed neighborhoods can create a radical new paradigm for social-urban discourse.

David English was a volunteer at our brainstorming event.

Dutch MacDonald is COO at MAYA Design, a human-centered design and technology consultancy, where he focuses on the intersection of people, technology, and the physical world. Mr. MacDonald is a registered architect in both Pennsylvania and New York. He practiced architecture for more than 17 years, most recently as vice president at EDGE Studio, a respected Pittsburgh-based architectural practice. Along the way, he became fascinated with what sets great creative endeavors apart operationally and how business can use design thinking as a differentiator. Mr. MacDonald’s degree in architecture is from Carnegie Mellon University, where he is an adjunct associate professor. He also studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he lived and worked. He was a fellow at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh, completing executive seminars in 2003 and 2004.

Eric Singer was a volunteer at our brainstorming event.

Freddie Croce, RA is the Principal and Co-Founder of inter*ARCHITECTURE. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, as chair of the Land Use and Housing Committee, is overseeing the crafting of the Garfield Neighborhood Plan and Strategic Implementation Plan and sits on the Planning and Design committee of Friendship Development Associates. He is also currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Architecture department at Carnegie Mellon University.

Gabriel McMorland (cityLAB intern, 2011) is an Urban Studies major at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a non-traditional student that brings non-traditional ideas to cityLAB. Fundamentally, Gabe believes in bringing people to the streets and in the power of multi-layered thinking. Gabe is honored to be working on cityLAB and hope's his efforts invigorate Pittsburgh’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit. When he’s not wandering through the riverbanks and hollows of our city’s secret geography, Gabe is looking for new ways to reimagine how people can connect with each other and urban space.

Hilary Robinson is the dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. Trained as a painter in the 1970s, she spent many years working as an artist and as an arts administrator, critic and lecturer. She taught history and theory of art at the University of Ulster and in 1998 became research co-ordinator, helping, by 2001, to place the School in the top tier of Art and Design institutions in the UK. In 2002 she was appointed Head of the School of Art and Design. Her own research is in the field of contemporary art theory and has published numerous journal, magazine and catalogue essays, including the anthology Visibly Female in 1987, Feminism-Art-Theory 1968-2000 in 2001 and in 2006 Reading Art, Reading Irigaray: the Politics of Art by Women. She is a board member of The Andy Warhol Museum, The Mattress Factory, Quantum Theatre, Silver Eye, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, as well as a member of the Programming Advisory Committee of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

Mixed media & folk performance artist Jason Sauer owns and runs the gallery Most Wanted Fine Art on Penn Ave in Garfield. He is currently Arts District Manager at Penn Avenue Arts Initiative (PAAI) and manages the Green and Screen project. He is a Community Service leader for city of Pittsburgh, and builds and drives demolition derby cars.

Jes Friedrichs was a volunteer at our brainstorming event.

John Norton is an internationally recognized expert in the science of Albert Einstein. He has published extensively on Einstein's discoveries of general relativity, special relativity and the light quantum and also on philosophical aspects of Einstein's work. He has been a contributing editor to the publication of Einstein's collected papers and serves on the publication project's advisory board. His most notable achievement was the analysis of the "Zurich Notebook," which contains private calculations made by Einstein in preparation for his greatest discovery, the general theory of relativity. In 2005, Professor Norton was an invited speaker at many conferences celebrating the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis of 1905, including events in Washington, London, Berlin, Tenerife, Jerusalem, Pasadena, Florence and Bern in Switzerland. Professor Norton has taught in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, since 1983. He was its Chair from 2000-2005 and, since 2005, has been the Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, which is the world's leading research institute in philosophy of science. In an earlier career, Professor Norton was a chemical engineer and worked for Shell Refining making gasoline. That, he remarks, was worthwhile work, but pondering Einstein, his discoveries and a wide range of problems in history and philosophy of science is infinitely more entertaining.

Jon Colombo was a volunteer at our brainstorming event.

Maria Graziani has been a Garfield resident since 1999. Over the past 12 years she has been committed to the health and wellness of Garfield through her work starting and developing Healcrest Urban Farms, Inc. located on Hillcrest Street. Maria is not only a certified herbalist, urban farmer and small business owner, she is a professional Project Manager, an MBA student at Carlow University, a yogi and a dedicated single mother to her son Savitur Negus Tafari! They are pictured here spending a relaxing weekend at home in Garfield.

Mike Roy was a volunteer at our brainstorming event.

Mickey McManus is president and CEO of MAYA Design, a design consultancy and innovation lab dedicated to taming the complexity of technology products. He leads an interdisciplinary team that creates innovative ways to integrate information and technology into a satisfying consumer experience. He speaks often about the need to include the human element in design, especially in the looming multi-billion dollar pervasive computing industry, which will encompass a multitude of networked products and smart services throughout our environment. Mickey was formerly co-founder and senior vice president of creative vision and strategy at élan communications, an integrated communications consultancy.

Nina Marie Barbuto lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA. She completed the Mediascapes Master of Architecture Program at Southern California and has a Bachelors of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. Her media includes architecture, film, sound, and art installation often with the idea of recycling noise into the system or elevating the vernacular spectacular. Over the past seven years, her works have been featured in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Seoul, Korea. In 2007, she co-founded the I Made It! Market, a nomadic indie crafts marketplace that provides opportunities for artists to sell their wares. An idea based on urban acupuncture, the I Made It!Market partners with community, arts and non-profit organizations to raise funds and awareness to assist in improving their communities. Currently, Nina's entrepreneur ventures include awesome studio, focusing on social media and architecture, and awesome gallery, an experimental space where one can learn through the process of making.

Regina Koetters is driven to unleash the unrealized potential of the country’s riverfront Rust Belt cities through transportation oriented and strategic redevelopment, and chose Pittsburgh over every other city in the nation to begin her work.  A native of Louisville, Kentucky, she logged ten years of active duty between her studies in naval architecture at the United States Naval Academy and progressive real estate development and business at the University of Michigan. During her naval career, she managed operations of the largest air base in Iraq; led airborne maritime patrol and reconnaissance missions throughout the western hemisphere, and facilitated maritime security and economic development projects in western Africa.  Since relocating to Pittsburgh, she has championed several initiatives for sustainable development projects in downtown Pittsburgh and joined a public-private team endeavoring to bring passenger rail service to the Allegheny Riverfront.

Rick Swartz, executive director of the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation, has dedicated decades to the improvement of the neighborhood he lives and works in. In his role, he seeks to better the social, economic and physical fabric of the Bloomfield, Garfield and Friendship neighborhoods by engaging and inspiring members of the community.

Sam Boese filmed our brainstorming event.

Adam Nelson, founder of Obscure Games.

Allen Hahn, The Secret City.

Amanda Markovic, Edge Studio.

Angela Gonzalez, Architecture Student.

Anne Chen, AIA, LEED AP, is a principal of EDGE studio, an architecture firm established in Pittsburgh in 1995 and recognized with over 30 design awards and national publications. Specializing in higher education and cultural/public projects, her firm’s list of notable projects include projects for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Erie Art Museum, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Anne is also a member of the Advisory Committee for the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh, a board member of the Pittsburgh Glass Center and the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute for Architects.

Barbra Labbie, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Constance Vale, Architectural Designer at EDGE Studio.

Craig Rosman, Architecture Student.

Dana Bishop-Root, Co-founder of Transformazium, Braddock, PA.

David Mansfield, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Dee Briggs is a sculptor born in 1968 in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. She received a Masters of Architecture degree from Yale University in 2002 with undergraduate studies in architecture from the City College of New York. Briggs exhibits nationally and teaches in the Schools of Art and Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. She lives and works in New York and Pittsburgh.

Dutch MacDonald is COO at MAYA Design, a human-centered design and technology consultancy, where he focuses on the intersection of people, technology, and the physical world. Mr. MacDonald is a registered architect in both Pennsylvania and New York. He practiced architecture for more than 17 years, most recently as vice president at EDGE Studio, a respected Pittsburgh-based architectural practice. Along the way, he became fascinated with what sets great creative endeavors apart operationally and how business can use design thinking as a differentiator. Mr. MacDonald’s degree in architecture is from Carnegie Mellon University, where he is an adjunct associate professor. He also studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he lived and worked. He was a fellow at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh, completing executive seminars in 2003 and 2004.

Elizabeth Duroy, Architecture Student.

Emily Sullivan, Point.

Franklin Krouse, Architecture Student.

Gary Carlough, Founder of EDGE Studio, Pittsburgh.

Gerald Morosco is the founder and president of Gerald Lee Morosco Architects. He has over 26 years of professional experience in the practice of architecture and the allied arts, land and urban planning, downtown revitalization and interior design. He is widely recognized for his nationally award-winning work in historic preservation. Jerry trained as an architect traditionally, by way of apprenticeship, in the offices of Taliesin Architects, the successor firm continuing the architectural practice of Frank Lloyd Wright. His best-selling first book, How to Work with an Architect was published in May 2006.

Gillian Goldberg, philosophy graduate.

Heather Estes, Director of Marketing at Deeplocal.

Hilary Robinson is the dean of the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. Trained as a painter in the 1970s, she spent many years working as an artist and as an arts administrator, critic and lecturer. She taught history and theory of art at the University of Ulster and in 1998 became research co-ordinator, helping, by 2001, to place the School in the top tier of Art and Design institutions in the UK. In 2002 she was appointed Head of the School of Art and Design. Her own research is in the field of contemporary art theory and has published numerous journal, magazine and catalogue essays, including the anthology Visibly Female in 1987, Feminism-Art-Theory 1968-2000 in 2001 and in 2006 Reading Art, Reading Irigaray: the Politics of Art by Women. She is a board member of The Andy Warhol Museum, The Mattress Factory, Quantum Theatre, Silver Eye, and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, as well as a member of the Programming Advisory Committee of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

Isaac Kwon, Architecture Student.

Jonathan Greene is an architect and designer who has taken a different philosophical approach to design. Traveling extensively he documents buildings and places, settling for short periods in places that “beg of more attention” where he temporarily puts down roots, and funnels his experience of that place into a dwelling for himself.

Jon Rubin is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work explores the social dynamics of public places and the idiosyncrasies of individual and group behavior. His solo and collaborative projects include creating a game show for ideas, opening a fake store in an indoor shopping mall, starting a restaurant that secretly runs via takeout from its double across the street, broadcasting an office's telephone conversations through a talking piano and developing a free nomadic art school. He has exhibited video, drawings, installations and public projects internationally, including at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo (Mexico), The Rooseum (Sweden), Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (Germany), Nemo Film Festival (Paris), as well as in backyards, living rooms and street corners. He is famous locally for his current project, the Waffle Shop.

Joseph Koon, Architecture Student.

Joshua Welsh, Adjunct Instructor, School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University.

Joy Kang, Architecture Student.

Kathy Oliver, Producer.

Kaitlin Miciunas, Architecture Student.

Karla Boos, Founder and Artistic Director, Quantum Theatre.

Kendra Gaul, Architecture Student.

Liam Lowe, Architecture Student.

Liza Langer, Architecture Student.

Michael Jeffers, Architecture Student.

Misha Varshavsky, Architecture Student.

Niko Triulzi, Architecture Student.

Noelle White, Architecture Student.

Pablo R. Garcia is the founder and principal of Pablo Garcia/POiNT, a collaborative and multidisciplinary research studio based in Pittsburgh. POiNT is dedicated to experiments in the spatial arts - architecture, design and the visual and performing arts, in a variety of scales from the portable to the urban. In addition to POiNT, Pablo is the Lucien and Rita Caste Chair in Architecture and Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, Pablo was the 2007-2008 Muschenheim Fellow at the University of Michigan College of Architecture + Urban Planning.

Rob Pfaffmann, AIA, AICP is an architect and planner with over 30 years of diverse experience leading the design of key architecture, preservation and planning projects in the Pittsburgh region. Through his writings, drawings and research, and community involvement, he is known for his advocacy of design, historic preservation and urban planning policy. Rob began his career in higher education at Syracuse University and then moved to the Pittsburgh office of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson in 1983.  There he has led key projects, ranging from Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute to the Heinz History Center. Since founding Pfaffmann + Associates in 1996, Rob's design leadership has continued with a wide range of award-winning work that includes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, the Homewood and Hill District branches of the Carnegie Library and Alcoa's US Business Services Center. Rob's urban planning work is grounded in his passion for Pittsburgh's historic neighborhoods and riverfronts. He has developed community plans for many Pittsburgh Neighborhoods including the Central Northside and Lawrenceville. His proposals for the Reuse of the Mellon Arena received an AIA design award last fall.

Ryan Hopkins, founder of the Public Square Project.

Sara Blumenstein managed cityLAB's experiments and designed cityLAB's programs, graphics, and web projects from 2011 to 2014. She loved working on cityLAB's projects, especially the Garfield Night Market and Tiny Houses. Read more about Sara on her website.

Stephanie Newcomb, Architecture Student.

Talia Perry, Architecture Student.

Magali Duzant, Photographer and illustrator extraordinaire.

Matt Gray was born in Sydney to English parents with Canadian passports and has had a notable career which includes teaching, directing and performing at many prestigious schools such as LAMDA, the Royal Academy of Dance, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the Arts Council of the Isle of Man and Concordia in Shanghai. Most recently Matt was seen performing in Quantum Theater’s production of 36 Views, as well as directing Crime and Punishment for Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater (PICT) which the City Paper called “the best production of 2009”. He is currently working on a new adaptation of RUR (where the word ‘robot’ was first used), continuing his research into Live Performance Skills and Digital Technology, is a professor in the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and is directing the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama’s production of Richard III.

Matthew Day, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Mickey McManus is president and CEO of MAYA Design, a design consultancy and innovation lab dedicated to taming the complexity of technology products. He leads an interdisciplinary team that creates innovative ways to integrate information and technology into a satisfying consumer experience. He speaks often about the need to include the human element in design, especially in the looming multi-billion dollar pervasive computing industry, which will encompass a multitude of networked products and smart services throughout our environment. Mickey was formerly co-founder and senior vice president of creative vision and strategy at élan communications, an integrated communications consultancy.

Mykia Long, Coro Fellow, Pittsburgh.

Nathan Martin is the founder and CEO of DeepLocal, an innovation studio that helps companies rapidly develop and implement new ideas and technology. Nathan leads a team of creative people, each with specific areas of expertise all working to apply the ingenuity of art to the challenges of business. Nathan has taught art and design at several universities and holds an MFA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, both in Electronic Media Art. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work in art, music, and technology, and continues to write and speak about his passion for integrating the artists' process into the design and development of improved ways of experiencing people, information and objects in this world.

Sam Price, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Sandhya Krishnan, Executive Director of Blue Mango.

Senay Erdem, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Spike Wolff works both as a freelance designer in Pittsburgh and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, teaching undergraduate design studios, coordinating the school’s lecture series and curating the 2010 wats:ON festival. Recent freelance projects include The Hurricane a temporary jazz club in the Hill District and exhibition design for the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh. Spike moved to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles, where she worked on museum projects including The Getty Center, exhibition design for the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA and historic restoration projects of the Kaufmann House by Richard Neutra and the Loewy House by Albert Frey.

Todd Owens, Dewey & Kaye.

Tony Miga, Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Will Zavala is an assistant professor at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. He specializes in documentaries and founded the Documentary Salon, a monthly film club, in 2006. Will is from California, where he studied filmmaking at Stanford University and produced videos for clients in the San Francisco bay area. In 2003 he moved to Pittsburgh with his new wife and son because they wanted to live there, and they they now have a daughter as well. Will’s most recent documentary, Virgil Cantini: The Artist in Public, was exhibited with other short films at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in the fall of 2009. Will's class in Advanced Documentary Production is documenting "Pop Pittsburgh Up".

Zach Cohen, Architecture student.