Civic Leadership Program

Born and raised in Nigeria, Tosin Bamidele is a graduate of Iowa State University where she earned a dual master’s degree in Architecture and Business Administration. Before that, she had graduated from the Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria, where she was awarded a BTech and MTech in Architecture in 2016 and 2018, respectively. From a young age, she has been interested and involved in projects that serve various communities in need. Her experience spans radio journalism, business case competitions, international architectural practice, and research publications.

Passionate about residential architecture, Bamidele currently works at Ike Kligerman Barkley, an experience she hopes will equip her with the ability to fuse elements of her West African heritage with her Euro-American education and work experience in classical building designs of the future. In 2021, she received Iowa State University’s William M. Dikis, FAIA, Architecture Service Scholarship in recognition of her volunteerism, leadership, and service to the public and architectural profession. She was also the graduate student marshal of her cohort at the Debbie and Jerry Ivy College of Business.

Bamidele is currently working towards architectural licensure in the state of New York, where she eagerly looks forward to building on her achievements in meaningful ways for the rest of her life.

Kim Choy is an architect-as-advocate with civic equity at heart, an emergent professional pursuing licensure, and an active participant in the city’s public streets, parks, libraries and markets. He is currently a Designer at Dattner Architects, working on projects ranging from feasibility studies for NYCHA’s PACT program to accessibility upgrades for New York City Transit’s subway lines.

Having grown up in a highly engineered city like Hong Kong and a city of neighborhoods in Vancouver, Choy was inspired by the equal access to public amenities as social infrastructure that cities fight to offer, particularly a city’s libraries, sport facilities, public parks, sidewalks, bike lanes, and mass transit solutions. He believes that, as a tool for social equity, mobility and resiliency, it is crucial to preserve, improve and create more common ground for people to share, cross paths, and be together. From his experiences living and working in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Austin, he has learned that equal claim to civic spaces is a keystone to creating equitable, democratic, and proud cities

Outside of work, you can find Choy discovering new bike routes around the boroughs, running along Hudson or East River, or swimming in one of New York’s public pools, indoor and out.

Steven Corsello is a recent graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and holds Master’s degrees in Architecture and Real Estate Development. Interested in the relationships between the built environment, urban vulnerabilities, and life-outcomes, he believes that better cities begin with better buildings. While a graduate student, Corsello co-led the University Senate’s student caucus as vice chair of the Student Affairs Committee, helping to shape the administration’s response to COVID-19 from the beginning of the pandemic through the summer of 2021.

As a member of a developer-facing studio in Gensler’s New York office, Corsello identifies opportunities for owners to maximize the long-term value of their assets, with an emphasis on building reuse and adaptation. Tasked with developing proxy analytics to measure return-on-design, a key goal of the team’s mandate is to understand why buildings do and don’t work well for their occupants within a broader context of social and environmental priorities.

Outside of work, Corsello sits on the board of the Center for Community Alternatives, a justice reform non-profit that has pioneered restorative, re-integrative techniques with a particular focus on eliminating the system’s reliance on prisons and jails and developing the next generation of supportive facilities designed to end mass incarceration.

Iyatunde Majekodunmi’s journey into design started during her early childhood vacations at her parents’ home in Lagos, Nigeria. At a young age, she was able to witness two completely different worlds, and, more specifically, the differences between how materials are utilized in New York and Lagos. She became aware of detail in infrastructure, the programming of urban and private spaces, and the planning of cities. In addition to her many trips to Nigeria, she has been able to travel to other countries, allowing her to develop a fascination with changing perspectives, cultures, and infrastructure. Majekodunmi strives to be a global citizen and implement what she has learned from her travels in her everyday life. She considers living in New York—a global melting pot—a great opportunity to apply the lessons she has learned from her travels to understand how the city is constantly changing to adhere to its diversity. Majekodunmi can look at problems from multiple perspectives and is often ready to tackle them through conventional and unconventional methods. She was raised to have a strong work ethic and believe in the individual responsibility of civic duty. Majekodunmi began to develop a skillset applied to infrastructure while working as a shop tech and doing freelance fabrication in school, allowing her to understand the many details necessary to create the whole. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and is currently working as an Architectural Designer at KPF.

Kasey Motley is a licensed architect and sustainable designer with a proven record of leading interdisciplinary project teams and developing systems-based solutions for urban sustainability. Motley advocates for vulnerable communities and engages the public to develop inclusive climate strategies. She is currently working as a project architect for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where she designs and manages large-scale public infrastructure projects at aviation, bus, rail, and port facilities. She leads sustainability initiatives within the agency through project-specific evaluations and the development of agency standards. As a former EDF Climate Corps Fellow, Motley worked with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice on the intersection of equity and energy infrastructure. Motley also led a pro-bono consultancy team to develop the City of Mount Vernon’s first Climate Action Plan.

Motley earned a B. Arch from Penn State University and an MS in Sustainability Management from Columbia University. She continues to engage with Columbia University as a mentor for the Women & Sustainability organization.

Ankita Nalavade graduated with a Master in Sustainable Environmental Systems from Pratt Institute. With the program’s systems-thinking approach, she was able to understand the link between the technical and social aspects of the built environment.  In addition, Nalavade’s experience working in Mumbai, India, and New York City, along with her unique combination of architecture and infrastructure skills help her paint a holistic picture of the urban built environment.

Currently, Nalavade is working at the NYC Department of Design and Construction as a Sustainability Coordinator and Green Infrastructure Project Manager in the Infrastructure unit. As a Green Infrastructure Project Manager, her role is to help the NYC Department of Environmental Protection design and construct green infrastructure assets, including bioswales and porous concrete structures, and achieve water quality goals set by the New York State Department of Conservation. As Sustainability Coordinator, her role is to help the city achieve the sustainability and resiliency goals outlined in One NYC 2050, New York City’s strategic plan to secure the city’s future against the challenges of today and tomorrow.

James Piacentini is a designer and planner whose professional interests include the investigation of climate, racial, and social equity through spatial and digital cartographic data tools. Piacentini is a Product Manager in the Digital Services division of the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP). He works primarily on the agency’s portfolio of digital mapping tools and services, and most recently managed the development and launch of the city’s first racial equity data and development explorer. At DCP, Piacentini is also a member of the internal Racial Equity working group. Before joining DCP, he worked as a Cartographer and Data Analyst at Apple, focusing on public transit, and was previously a Design Manager at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he received his Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Urban Planning degrees in 2020. While at GSAPP, Piacentini was awarded the all-school Visualization Prize, the William Kinne Fellows Traveling Prize, the John Belle Travel Fellowship, and the Incubator Prize for Climate Justice Research. Prior to moving to New York, HEs lived in Italy, where he studied the modern industrialization of Rome with funding from a Fulbright Fellowship. Piacentini grew up in Santa Monica, California, and has lived in New York City for six years. He loves his dog Korra, playing guitar, drinking coffee, and making maps.

Harriet Provine has worked in the Planning, Design, and Construction Department of Central Park Conservancy for the past five years. Her work focuses on historic restoration and accessibility. Working in Central Park has taught her how to navigate the needs of a diverse array of people and interests.

Provine grew up in New York City and has lived here for most of her life, making her particularly mindful of the effect public space can have on communities. She is acutely aware of how public spaces can fail to be equitable by ignoring local history or by being inaccessible to people with disabilities.

In addition to her work at the Center Park Conservancy, she has also done pro-bono design work for several organizations with a social welfare focus. Provine is also passionate about illustration and graphic design and tries to incorporate these skill sets into her volunteer work.

Hailing from Queens, NY, Nicolas Savvides is an experienced designer and construction project manager with a history of working along all sides of the construction and real estate process.

Savvides earned his Bachelor of Architecture with concentrations in Urban Planning and Sustainability from Cornell University in 2014. Early on, he identified his passion for hands-on real estate projects and for community empowerment.

After graduating from Cornell, Savvides began his work in community-based design and construction implementation as a Project Manager at the ReNew Lots Artist and Market Incubator. Between 2014 and 2018, he also worked as a teaching artist at Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, Youth Design Center, and the New School.

Since 2018, Savvides has developed his expertise as a designer and construction manager in architecture offices, working with developers and property owners, and running infrastructure resiliency projects for New York State. Currently, Savvides works as a Senior Project Manager for high-end residential projects in New York City.

Savvides also offers mission-based construction and real estate project management services through his consultancy, We Build US. He is currently a BKCC Economic Democracy Fellow at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, where he is working towards a Graduate Certificate in Workplace Democracy and Community Ownership. Savvides is also on the path to achieving his architectural registration.

Bradley Sherburne is an architect and urban designer from New York City, where he is an Associate for Kliment Halsband Architects, a studio of Perkins Eastman. He earned a B.Arch and a Master of Design fromCarnegie Mellon, where his work focused on the intersection of human-scaled cities within a sustainability context.

After receiving his license to practice as an architect in the state of New York, Sherburne turned his focus to DEI initiatives by creating architectural designs that fostered inclusion and visibility. One such project was for the Africana Studies Department at Brown University, where he was able to effectively meet the client’s needs for a department that reflected the ideals held by the academics utilizing the space.
Sherburne’s primary works are with public and private K-12 schools, museums, colleges, and universities. As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and an active advocate for the transgender community, Sherburne’s understanding of the gender spectrum offers an unparalleled advantage to the clients he serves. It is also a perspective he has shared at his local Manhattan Community Board 6.

Sherburne lives in Gramercy Park with his dog and husband, in that order. He enjoys observing the use of urban settings while exploring common spaces in his neighborhood with his Shiba Inu, Jackson. Recently he has become involved with queer organizations like God’s Love We Deliver, where he delivers meals to underserved neighbors, and the Human Rights Campaign.