People

Jasmineb@mit.edu
617.253.3216

Jasmine joined CoLab in January 2011. Her primary responsibilities include coordinating scheduling and travel for the executive director and staff, and overseeing the overall management of the lab space. Prior to joining MIT Jasmine worked for Cambridge Health Alliance for four years as an Administrative Assistant in the Community Affairs Department. Jasmine has extensive experience in travel coordination and accounting having also worked for TNT Vacations as a Booking Agent and as an Accounts Receivable Assistant.

a_bryson@mit.edu
617-253-7673

Alyssa is an urban planner and international development professional with a regional focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. She is currently a Program Director at the CoLab, where she works with low-income communities and MIT affiliates to advance research and programming on the social and economic development of cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Before coming to MIT, she worked with the United Nations Development Fund for Women in Ecuador and Colombia on projects dedicated to promoting economic and civic participation in the Andean Region. Her experience includes work with cities, universities, non-profit organizations, and private sector enterprises in the US and Latin America. Ms. Bryson holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT and a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University. Her innovative Masters thesis used participatory mapping to examine how residents use their physical, sociopolitical, and economic mobility to adapt to situations of severe violence in peripheral neighborhoods of Bogotá, Colombia.

dayna@mit.edu
617-252-1380

Dayna has over 20 years of experience working in democratic engagement and social justice as an attorney, in philanthropy and in development. Dayna worked as a voting rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, litigating cases in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere in the South.

As an Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, she funded initiatives that examined the relationship between democracy and race, changing racial dynamics and new conceptions of race in the U.S., as well as innovation in civil rights legal work. She also worked as an officer for the New York City Program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. While associated with Public Interest Projects, a non-profit project management and philanthropic consulting firm based in New York City, she managed foundation collaboratives on social justice issues.

Most recently, Dayna directed the ELIAS Project, an MIT-based collaboration between business, NGOs and government that seeks to use processes of profound innovation to advance economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Dayna holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a juris doctor degree from New York University School of Law. She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and Radcliff Colleges.

iuviene@mit.edu

Nick Iuviene is a research associate at the Community Innovators Lab at MIT. His work focusses on urban economic democracy projects including the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative and the Emerald Cities Collaborative. Previously Nick worked as a community organizer in the Bronx and was co-founder of BlackLeaf Studios, a technology development firm in Brooklyn, NY. Nick has a Masters degree in City Planning from MIT. His graduate thesis, "Building a Platform for Economic Democracy: A Cooperative Development Strategy for the Bronx", looked at how to develop cooperative networks in communities as the organizational infrastructure for socially equitable and environmentally sustainable economic development.

libmac@mit.edu
617-899-1360

As a CoLab Global Program Associate, Libby develops and implements integrated waste management strategies in low-income communities to promote social and economic change. Currently, in Latin American and the Caribbean, she applies innovative waste technologies and business models in urban centers and remote municipalities that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gases and create jobs for impoverished populations. Her most recent work includes: 1.) partnering with Rede CataSampa, the Sao Paulo chapter of Brazil’s national union of waste pickers, the University of Sao Paulo, and MIT students from multiple disciplines to implement a waste vegetable oil collection and filtration business in waste picking cooperatives; and 2.) in partnership with five municipalities and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), she works on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, creating technology and business models for small recycling and waste-to-energy businesses that provide income opportunities for some of the region’s most marginalized people. In her fall 2011 MIT course, D-Lab Waste, Libby will offer students the opportunity to explore and create solutions for waste management in low-and–middle-income countries. A writer and a documentary filmmaker, Libby’s film and written work explore issues of race, equality, and the environment. In 2007 she published the book The Toxic Sandbox: The Truth About Environmental Toxins and Our Children's Health (Penguin, 2007) and was featured on more than 60 radio shows, talking about how environmental pollutants impact the social, cognitive, and physical development of our children. Libby has written, directed, and produced film and television for two decades.

alexam@mit.edu
617-253-3216

Alexa Mills is the Editor of CoLab Radio at MIT's Community Innovator's Lab, where she has combined her passion for stories with her passion for bottom-up urban planning. Alexa works directly with communities to develop media that expresses their perspective on various issues. Alexa founded CoLab Radio, a blog site where people who are committed to improving their communities can share their projects and express their ideas. The site publishes work by a mix of practitioners, academics, and individual residents. Alexa curates and edits the content on CoLab Radio.

Alexa earned her BA in English, with a concentration in Medieval Literature, from Cornell University in 2003. She earned her Master's in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008. Before attending MIT, Alexa directed the SAFE Victim Advocacy Program in the Domestic Violence Unit of the Washington D.C. city courthouse.

ruhfel@mit.edu
617.715.4307

Christina joined CoLab in October 2008 and is responsible for overseeing many of the administrative functions of the Lab related to finance, communications, fund-raising, and human resources. Prior to CoLab, she worked in MIT's Resource Development Department assisting with fund-raising activities for energy and environmental initiatives. Christina grew up in southeast Michigan where she spent four years as Associate Coordinator of a school-based water quality monitoring program on the Rouge River.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Health from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan; and a Master of Liberal Arts in Sustainability and Environmental Management from the Harvard University Extension School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

astitely@mit.edu
617-253-7139

Amy Stitely became the U.S. Green Hub Program Director in June 2009. As a former architect, ESL teacher, youth mentor, and non-profit administrator, Amy draws upon a broad range of professional and personal experiences to inform the CoLab practice of “greening with equity.”

Prior to joining CoLab, Amy acted as a project manager for various architecture, planning, and development initiatives in New England. She managed a public housing capital needs assessment for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, led a research team studying the neighborhood effects of foreclosure, flooding, and vacant land disposition in the City of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and drafted the first 23 target neighborhood redevelopment plans for the Office of Recovery Management in New Orleans.

Amy is passionate about simultaneously addressing the issues of environment, health, and economy. Her current projects link community energy efficiency to workforce development and constituency building. Amy has a Masters in City Planning from MIT and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Maryland.