Programme Director
Susan received a Masters in Urban Planning: Real Estate/Urban Design at Harvard, as well as a Bachelors in History of Art and Architecture.
She joined CPI in 2023.
Susan’s first job out of college was going door to door organising with the Vietnamese and Spanish speaking businesses to advocate for Bus Rapid Transit in San Jose and Oakland. She was at the organisation for 3 years and left for grad school. When Susan came back about 10 years later, she was pleased to see the project running in San Jose’s corridor.
At the New Urban Mechanics, Susan was responsible for the coffee cart RPF at the entrance of City Hall. For those who don’t know, Boston’s city hall is from a period of architecture very dominating and harsh – think concrete slabs, grey and overbearing. It was the Mayor’s goal to make City Hall inviting, and who doesn’t like local coffee?
After the coffee cart went in, the coffee cart became City Hall’s watering hole. People would line up for coffee at 3:30 knowing the CFO would be there to grab a minute with him or seeing city staffers mingle with locals at city hall for some tasks felt really great. After the coffee cart, her team also put out some fake grass and adirondack chairs in the front that eventually became “The Lawn”. “The Lawn” became semi-permanent with a beer garden and holiday village and then the eventual remodel of City Hall Plaza about 8 years later.
At CPI, Susan is passionate about improving the lives of people through expanding who the government serves, and how. SAVES is a great example of that as it aims to better serve those experiencing domestic violence while needing child support services.
Susan is a maker at heart so at the surface that she enjoys creating art, admiring furniture but also cooking for family and friends, designing Halloween costumes. and lazing around warm weather locations with her husband.