People

ds4si Principals

Kenneth Bailey

Sector Organizing and Strategy Lead

Kenneth started his activism in the early eighties as a teenager, working in his neighborhood for tenants’ rights and decent housing, targeting the St. Louis Housing Authority. He went on to work for COOL, a national campus-based student organizing program, and then moved to Boston where he worked for the Ten Point Coalition, Interaction Institute for Social Change, and Third Sector New England, as well as being on the Board for Resource Generation.Most recently he has been a trainer and a consultant, primarily on issues of organizational development and community building. He first realized the need for a more “designerly” approach to community work while developing parts of the Boston Community Building Curriculum for The Boston Foundation. This workshop asked community activists and residents to think about creative ways to work with their community assets – existing social relationships, individual’s gifts and skills, and untapped local resources. Many community residents remained locked in conventional nonprofit approaches to working with community assets. They weren’t obliged to, they just knew no other way. He realized then that activists needed new tools to redesign approaches for community change, which led him to build a design studio for social activism.

Theresa Hwang 

Design Practice and Organizational Research 

Theresa is constantly looking to find joy and create meaningful beauty in the everyday. Her work has ranged from youth educator, graphic designer to accessibility planner. She is a community arts organizer with Boston ProgressArts Collective.  Together, they manage East Meets West, an independent Asian American bookstore and art space. Theresa received a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and holds undergraduate degrees in Civil Engineering and Art History from Johns Hopkins University.  She has independently studied with various artists learning different crafts from glassblowing to bronze-casting. Simply put, she likes to get her hands dirty while playing outside with friends.

Lori Lobenstine

Organizational Operations and Youth Action Lead

Lori grew up in a family of community and union organizers, and decided early on that working with youth was her passion and her route to creating change. She has been a youthworker for the past eighteen years, in settings as diverse as classrooms, basketball courts, museums and foreign countries. Most recently she has been a Director of Teen Programs for Girls Incorporated, a BEST trainer (teaching youth development concepts to other youthworkers), and a very successful basketball coach. Throughout these experiences, she has struggled with the challenges of creating new designs with youth, in fields that are often top-heavy and funding-driven. As a life-long activist, she is inspired by the vision that new design tools and a greater design awareness will bring new energy and power to our work.Lori is also the impresario of femalesneakerfiend.com, a thriving online and off-line community of female sneaker customizers, collectors, designers and connoisseurs.

--- Kenny, Lori and Najma were all fellows at the Center for Reflective Community Practice in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fellows Kiara L. Nagel,

Cultural Commons Fellow Participatory Planning and Community Development

Kiara grew up in Upstate, NY, one of four children. A scholarship at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center drew her to New York City where she studied dance and lived as a Lower East Side squatter for five years before completing undergraduate work at Hampshire College. Kiara learned from community elders, organizers, punks, and youth about the importance of public space and community organizing. She continues to work with a range of constituencies, building partnerships that contribute to equitable, just communities. In 2006, Kiara completed a Masters degree in City Planning from MIT, which culminated in her thesis , "Understanding Place After Katrina: Predatory Planning and Cultural Resistance in New Orleans' Treme Neighborhood." She is currently working with colleagues around the country who share her delight in people and places and her vision for innovative, anti-racist community development.

Najma Nazy'at, Youth Action Fellow