Deborah Ryan, Distinguished Jane Jacobs fellow, Jane Jacobs collegiate consortium

Deborah Ryan is a registered landscape architect and a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UNC Charlotte, the only woman to achieve that rank in the School of Architecture’s almost 50-year history. She is a former adjunct faculty member in UNC Charlotte’s Master of Science in Real Estate program (MSRE), and a co-instructor of classes in Women’s Studies and Department of Africana Studies. Professor Ryan is also the former Director of the University’s Master of Urban Design program, a former member of the landscape architecture faculty at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and a former Visiting Critic in Historic Preservation at Columbia University.

For her Fellowship, Professor Ryan will draw on the seminal work of Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, Jan Gehl, Gordon Cullen, John Stilgoe and others to build an observational methodology for architecture and urban design students in the United States. Her goal is to develop a way of site seeing that combines the authoritative model of rational mapping with a more feminist, sensorial and experiential way of knowing.  

ABINAYA RAJAVELU, OBSERVE! PROGRAM- INDIA

Abinaya is a passionate urbanist with a keen interest in creating people centric cities. She received a Masters degree in Urban and regional planning from the University of Tours, France and Bachelors in Architecture from SRM University, India. Currently, she is a senior associate at Urban Design Collective based in Chennai.

Abinaya strongly believes that collaborative and participatory methods play a major role in the creation of sustainable and lively cities. Over the past three years, she has worked with several local communities, institutions and organizations in a multitude of projects that hinge on public awareness and participation, data based sustainable city development and art in the city building process.  

observe! Program

Ford Foundation

KATHERINE NIX, JANE JACOBS FELLOW- OBSERVE! Program

Kat Nix graduated from the University of Utah in May of 2016 with a Bachelor’s in Urban Ecology and a minor in Multidisciplinary Design. For the last four years, she has worked with at-risk Latinx youth in the Salt Lake Valley through the University of Utah’s College of Social Work. She loves working with youth and ispassionate about creating equal opportunities for marginalized populations. She deeply believes creative placemaking, social and environmental diversity, unencumbered play and observation are key to vibrant communities. Kat is excited to be working with the Center of the Living City to help young womxn and girls around the globe to claim their voices and create meaningful change in their communities.

LAUREN BROWN, JANE JACOBS FELLOW- URBANSPACE @ 401 RICHMOND

Lauren Brown is a Jane Jacobs Fellow with the Center for the Living City focusing on urban agriculture and the benefits, impacts and efficacy of rooftop agriculture. She will be designing and building a case study in partnership with UrbanSpace at 401 Richmond Street West, a restored, heritage-designated, industrial building turned arts-and-culture hub in downtown Toronto. Lauren is passionate about doing applied research around environmental and climate justice, particularly related to urban food system vulnerability. After finishing a Masters in City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah in 2010, she spent the last six years working on environmental and food justice projects in Salt Lake City, Guatemala, and Brooklyn. She recently completed a Fulbright grant in Mauritius working on community based mapping around climate change and the felt impacts of climate change. 

Read about Lauren's project on her blog.