Kartik Amarnath ('13)

 

Polo Burguete ('18)

 

Annie Dixon ('18)

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My name is Annie, and I am originally from Evansville, IN. I graduated from DePauw in 2018 with a Bachelors of Arts as a double major in Interdisciplinary Urban Ecology and Environmental Biology. My engagement with DePauw's City Lab was a constant exploration of the relations between the social sciences and natural sciences and how I could put the two in conversations with one another. My senior thesis for my interdisciplinary major in urban studies focused on the potential and power of other knowledges in slums as we face systemic collapse. If I had to label myself within the City Lab realm, I would say I am a collaborator. City Lab thrives from conversation, and I cannot begin to quantify what I have learned through my colleagues. I am currently doing a temporary internship in public transportation in Indianapolis. I am interested in transit as a mitigation tactic for negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation. I also have a passion for public space and continue to explore how public transportation can serve as a space for individuals to mix. My future plans are in the making, but my pursuit of critical knowledge is ever increasing. 

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Adam Folta ('16)

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Born and raised in West Lafayette, Adam graduated from DePauw in 2016 with a Bachelor's or Arts in Urban Studies. On campus he played four years of varsity football and started DePauw's first ever student-operated pizzeria, Pizza Dude. After taking an Urban Studies class, 'History of the 21st Century City', he was convinced that thinking critically about city design and power dynamics within the urban environment was essential to humanity's future. Adam was able to spend a semester abroad in Copenhagen Denmark, one of Western-Europe's most orderly cities. To compliment his experience with, Copenhagen, for his City Lab capstone project, he studied Lagos, Nigeria. The interdisciplinary project explored how power, in Lagos--the fastest growing city in the world--worked through a patron-client network. Much of this project shed light on the disconnect between the United Nations proposed development within the city, and the city's deeply rooted patron client-network.  After graduation, Adam secured a position with KAR Auction Services as an Orr Fellow.  Now interested in urban analytics, Adam is a Data and Analytics Consultant at Protiviti in Chicago.

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Douglas Hinkel ('15)

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Grace Anne Oczon ('16)

 

Tristan Stamets ('18)

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Born in Florida but hailing from India, Tristan Stamets has lived in Bangalore, Singapore, Chicago, and New Delhi. He is DePauw’s first double interdisciplinary major, in Urban Studies as well as Energy Studies & Environmental Sustainability. “City Lab provided me with a crucial interdisciplinary space in which interesting, yet critical aspects of urban structures, both physical and abstract, could be analyzed and developed,” says Tristan of the City Lab ethos. “The triad of critical, descriptive, and normative thinking is a perfect representation of the well-rounded and passionate discussion and research that occurs within City Lab”. As a scholar studying the intertwining of energy and environmental issues with the urban fabric, Tristan’s research gravitates toward the implications of climate change and development on cities in the Global South, with a specific emphasis on “Smart” cities and 21st Century Urbanism. His Urban Studies senior thesis concerns energy transition and provision in India, with a focus on India’s burgeoning Smart Cities Mission. Tristan traveled to Quito, Ecuador in October 2016 with Annie Dixon and Dr. Kuecker to participate in the United Nations Habitat 3 conference, and the formulation of the New Urban Agenda. Tristan also organized the City Lab research trip to India in December 2017 as part of a research project examining the motives and palpable results of India’s Smart Cities Mission, attending the Indian Institute of Human Settlements’ 2018 research conference during the trip. After graduation, Tristan has worked as a Field Engineer for a wind energy conglomerate, ultimately seeking to assist future City Lab participants with their research by returning to City Lab in a professional capacity.

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Burke Stanton ('16)

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Originally from Maryland, Burke graduated DePauw University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and Honors scholar focus. My work related to City Lab at that time was my interdisciplinary thesis, which studied the theoretical and practical contributions of the Zapatista indigenous peasant movement to resisting coloniality of power and planetary ecocide. Following graduation, I spent a year in Mexico learning Spanish and collaborating in solidarity with various Zapatista initiatives. Currently I live in Chicago where I’m engaging in community organizing around education, music, and housing. I also am involved in organizations developing worker cooperatives and acting for environmental justice. I understand this work as inextricably connected with my continuing studies around the themes laid out in City Lab, which currently include a detailed review of the political economic contributions of Karl Marx, particularly through the lens of his only-recently discovered writings on ecology and “ethnography.” In my writing I’m interested in exploring Just Transition and alternatives to development that negotiate North-South, rural-urban, and worker-intellectual divides. I’ve had work published in the Philosophy of Music Education Review, online platforms, and maintain the blog https://assemblingdemocracy.wordpress.com/

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Mary Xiao ('16)

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Mary graduated DePauw University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies and Art History. While at DePauw, Mary’s curiosity about the urban form led her to study aboard with SIT’s Cities in the 21st Century International Honors Program and with the Danish Institute for Study Abroad (DIS). The two programs challenged her to see the urban landscape in different ways as she traveled through New York, São Paulo, Cape Town, Hanoi, Copenhagen, Vienna, and Budapest. While abroad she conducted research on the power of food and reconstruction of immigrant identities and communities during the process of migration. Mary returned to Hanoi to conduct research for her thesis, where she explored the literature of urban theorist, Jane Jacobs, and urban designer, Jan Gehl and asked what it means to build cities for people in the 21st century. City Lab served as a crucial space for Mary’s studies as it was a space that allowed for ideas regarding equity, urban planning, democracy, and pedagogy to converge. Following graduation, Mary worked for the Office of Sustainability in the City of Indianapolis and she was a volunteer instructor for the Kelsey Kauffman Higher Education Program at the Indianapolis Women’s Prison where she taught an Urban Studies course. Presently, Mary is a Master of Urban Design and Planning candidate for the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. She is specializing in Environmental Planning with a focus on resiliency and the intersection of environmental, economic, and social justice.