CLASS OF 2017

Adria Boynton

Adria Boynton holds degrees in both Architecture and Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Adria won the Maharam Fellowship for technology, engineering, and art, and used the award to research resilient design guidelines at the Massachusetts Port Authority. She was subsequently invited to the International Resilience Symposium at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Adria’s work was featured in a Manhattan exhibition that raised money for Japanese earthquake relief. She was a project manager for a resilient Design/Build that reclaimed an industrial waterfront site. Adria was also selected for RISD’s European Honors Program, where she developed a resilient urban design in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome. She has served as a guest critic and interned at multiple design firms.

Adria’s research interests include making coastal areas and aging infrastructure more resilient to sea level rise, storms, and other extreme events.

Justin Henceroth

Justin Henceroth works across sectors, disciplines, and scales to solve complex and controversial social and political issues. At GSD, his research has focused on how innovation processes contribute to resilience across multiple scales. As part of that work, he is leading a social venture with UNOPS Nepal that uses mobile technologies to enable a remote supervision process which improves quality and builds capacity within disaster reconstruction. Justin is also interested in understanding how modern forms of urbanization create and change patterns of risk. Prior to joining GSD, Justin facilitated urban climate resilience projects with developing cities throughout Southeast Asia and worked on the development of a community-based system for building resilience in the US. He also facilitated policy-making process addressing topics such as technology, security, forestry, water resources, agriculture, and energy.

Justin is a Resident Innovator in the Nepal Innovation Lab and a Leader-Mentor in the Young Southeast Asia Leadership Initiative. He has published multiple papers, including in Nature and Climate and Development. As a Meridian Institute Fellow, he worked on a Presidential Open Government Flagship Project and was awarded the 2012 National Environmental Collaboration and Conflict Resolution Award. Justin is a Henry Luce Scholar and a Boettcher Scholar, has a degree in Biology cum laude with Distinctions from The Colorado College, and speaks English, Thai, and Spanish.

Carlyn James

She’s a native Southerner, avid traveller, and wholehearted believer in the idea that who you’re designing for should be who you you’re designing with.
Prior to coming to the GSD, Carlyn was working at the strategic design consultancy ThinkPlace in Canberra, Australia. There, she worked with clients across Australia and Singapore to design innovative solutions to complex ‘human’ problems. She also assisted in the strategic planning of ThinkPlace’s international development arm. Carlyn is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya working for ThinkPlace Kenya.
Carlyn has extensive experience in ethnographic research, particularly in resource-poor contexts from East and West Africa to immigrant communities in Washington, D.C. and the lowest-income counties in the Southeastern US. She has conducted independent research on female entrepreneurship in Ghana with the University of Ghana, collaborative research on agricultural innovation in Kenya with the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute, and policy research on barriers to accessing microfinance in Kenya for the (former) Canadian International Development Agency. Much of Carlyn’s work focuses on the many forms of ‘value’ and ‘money’, and how credit-debt relationships can be a proxy for deeper social meaning (i.e. trust, social capital, resilience).
Carlyn holds a Master’s degree in anthropology from McGill University in Montréal and a Bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) in anthropology, international relations, and French from the University of Alabama.
She is focusing on a thesis involving more adaptive, iterative approaches to impact measurement and evaluation.

Genevieve Ennis Hume

Prior to studying at the GSD, Genevieve co-founded bespoke jewelry studio, Hume Atelier, bridging mining policy with ethical sourcing. She has worked extensively with artisanal miners, community leaders and international educators across South America and Africa, and has collaborated with organizations such as USAID, the UN, and the OECD. Her fieldwork has centered on land tenure, resource management and poverty reduction initiatives. She has facilitated traceable and transparent supply chains to develop peace-based economies with the aim of mitigating risk in post-conflict mining regions.
Since 2006, Genevieve has taught at the University of British Columbia. She has created and executed a program in Intercultural Communication in Development and Social Innovation at Kaospilot in Denmark, Colombia and South Africa. She has taught Ethical Sourcing in Design at the Pratt Institute as well as at the Rhode Island School of Design. Genevieve holds a Bachelor of Human Kinetics in Interdisciplinary Health and Human Service, and a Master of Arts in Intercultural and International Communication.

Arthur Leung

Arthur’s research at Harvard GSD focuses on adaptive strategies for natural hazards in urban contexts. With roots in the Pacific Northwest, Arthur’s thesis examines ground failures in the seismically-active port city of Seattle. His investigations brought him to coastal communities in the Tohoku region of Japan, where he conducted research on the reconstruction after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Prior to his studies, Arthur led a disaster resiliency project through Architecture for Humanity that sought solutions for the Next Big One (a megathrust earthquake expected in the Cascadia Region).

Arthur received his Bachelor of Environmental Design with Distinction and Master of Architecture from the University of British Columbia, and was the recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Medal upon graduation. His award-winning thesis investigated the use of “soft infrastructure” as a means to confront the issue of sea level rise. This project was presented at the AIBC & AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Conference. Arthur hopes to further explore potentials that lie at the intersection of building and landscape.

Andrea Margit

Andrea Margit is interested in imagining and planning the cities of tomorrow in a participatory and sustainable fashion. She has fifteen years of professional experience dedicated to rewire people’s intellect to their environments through cultural, educational and citizenship initiatives. Prior to joining GSD, she was leading forest management education programs in the Brazilian Amazon and working in the development of the Museum of Tomorrow, a centerpiece of Rio de Janeiro’s port district. She also worked with Conservation International for seven years in knowledge management and protected areas implementation in the Tropics. Andrea holds a Master in Business Administration from the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, a graduate degree in information sciences from the University of Paris II, and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. In the Master in Design Studies, she researches the impacts of development-induced displacement and resettlement on vulnerable communities.

Erin Ota

Erin Ota is an Mdes candidate in the Risk and Resilience concentration and M.Arch II candidate at the GSD.

Ashley C. Thompson

Ashley’s research interests include dynamics of resources, power, and their interdisciplinary implications.
Ashley entered the United States Air Force as a distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps and served as a Civil Engineer Officer. In 2014, she led a bilateral team of 40 engineers on a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief mission to the Philippines. Aimed at bolstering regional stability and building partner capacities, the team collaborated with the US State Department, Armed Forces of the Philippines, and Philippines Department of Education to construct a two-room schoolhouse and execute critical infrastructure projects in support of 1,500 students. Dedicated to eliminating sexual assault from the military, she also served as an Alternate Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, responsible for victim advocacy and training of 12,000 active duty and civilian members. She is a nationally certified Sexual Assault Advocate and Crisis Responder.
Ashley graduated magna cum laude from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Architecture. She has extensive personal and professional international experience to include working with Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris, France.