Marie Law Adams is a co-founder of Landing Studio and Associate Professor of Architecture at Northeastern University. Landing Studio is an architecture and urban design practice focused on improving the human experience and ecological health in spaces of urban infrastructure. Their projects take the form of buildings, under-highway spaces, marine docks, bridge lighting, public works depots, and public parks, and have been recognized with honors such as the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award, the League Prize, a Holcim Award, and a Progressive Architecture Award. Marie earned her M.Arch from MIT and is a registered architect.

Leventhal Cities Prize 

Kathleen Mead Vandiver
Director, Community Engagement Core
MIT  Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS)

Kathleen M. Vandiver, PhD is the Community Engagement Core Director for two MIT Research Centers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Community engagement work at these centers includes translating university research results to the public, as well as working with environmental justice (EJ) communities to improve environmental public health. Vandiver was drawn to working in Malden, MA where she coordinated a Human Health Risk Study for Boating on the Malden River. The study concluded all safety standards were met. Thus Vandiver took the next step with an eye on the inaugural Leventhal Cities Prize, recruiting a talented team for “Malden River Works for Equity and Resilience,” proposal. This project will be celebrated for its work during this LCAU’s anniversary event.

Leventhal Cities Prize 

Marcia Manong
Steering Committee Chairperson
Malden River Works

Marcia Manong is a resident of Malden, and works as Office Manager at Bread of Life, which offers free food to hungry, homeless, isolated people through dinners, food pantries, senior nutrition outreach, and food delivery in Malden and surrounding cities. She has for many years exercised her civic duty through participation in social justice and human rights issues. Marcia’s latest engagement is with the Malden River Works (MRW) Project, an experimental resilience project bringing together a new coalition of community leaders of color, youth, environmental advocates, and government stakeholders.

Leventhal Cities Prize 

Carlos Sandoval Olascoaga
Assistant Professor
School of Architecture,
Northeastern University

Carlos Sandoval Olascoaga is Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Inclusive Design at the School of Architecture at Northeastern University and Affiliate Assistant Professor at Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. Carlos is Visiting Scientist at MIT, where he was previously Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer with a joint appointment between the Department of Architecture and the Schwarzman College of Computing. His work combines design, computing, urban data and public service to provide formal computational design methods that allow the broadest set of community members to shape their own environments equitably and holistically with the support of computational intelligence.

Catalyzing Urban Innovation