mabril2@illinois.edu
Gabriela is a third-year Master in Architecture and Master in Urban Planning candidate. She
is interested in how political and sociological awareness shape design and spatial production practices. Her current research project focuses on the relations of domination reflected in the management of urban architectural heritage and the production of public space in Latin American colonial cities.
Julia Paiva is a Ph.D. student in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She holds a double major in Civil Engineering and Architecture-Urbanism from the University of São Paulo and a master’s in urban planning. Formerly a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank, her work focuses on housing policy, transit-oriented development, and equitable urban growth with a strong commitment to social justice.
camilam4@illinois.edu
Camila Madariaga (She/Her) is a Chilean architect currently pursuing her Master of Urban Planning degree at the University of Illinois. Originally from Talca, Chile, she developed her career as an architect working as an intermediary between the Chilean government and communities applying for government housing grants. She later worked in an architectural firm where she conducted site studies for real estate developers, as well as architectural design of buildings and housing complexes. With a strong conviction for the humanities, she seeks to integrate nature, social justice, and sustainable building logics. In her free time she enjoys reading, spending time in nature, traveling, practicing yoga, meditating and spending time with her family.
dm38@illinois.edu
Daniela has more than ten years of experience working in Chilean public institutions and as a private practitioner supporting grassroots organizations and local communities. She has also participated in and led several research projects and consultancy on cultural heritage, human rights, and environmental planning, applying participatory design and planning methods.
Daniela’s research analyzes the role of planning and environmental policies in Chile’s evolution and consequences of extractive industries. She explores the legacies and effects of regulatory frameworks and space creation/normalization structures such as the Environmental Impact Assessment System: how racialized territories and colonial continuities shaped the regulatory framework to produce industrialized landscapes that perpetuate displacement and systematic human rights violations.
marinam4@illinois.edu
Marina is a graduate student in Geography & Geographic Information Science. Her background is in Social Sciences and Urban Studies, and she now focuses on urban history and geographies, land-use policies, displacing forces, housing, gender, decolonial studies, and collaborative and interdisciplinary research.
Manuela is a M.S. student in Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences (Human Dimension of the Environment), she has a graduate specialization in Environmental and Ecological Economics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico and graduated with a B.S. in Ecology from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia. Her research interests are the intersection of conflict, peacebuilding and the environment, common pool resources management, and people’s motivation in Payments of Ecosystem Services. She has experience in research in Colombia and Mexico. She will additionally complete a graduate minor in Gender Relations in International Development (GRID) to understand how gender approaches can influence environmental problems.
Andrea is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science. She is a critical transportation geographer from Puerto Rico, and her research focuses on the histories and contemporary realities of transportation governance on the islands, particularly how these systems are shaped by coloniality. Her work explores the intersections of infrastructure, mobility, and power as they unfold in everyday life in Puerto Rico.
celiohr2@illinois.edu
Célio H. Rocha Moura is a Brazilian Architect/Urbanist and graduate student in Geography & Geographic Information Science. His interests include Brazilian Studies; Protected Areas Issues; Conservation of Immaterial and Natural Heritage; Territory and Society. He is currently researching how socio-environmental dissonances act to solidify or dissipate the identities of marginalized fishing settlements in the mangroves of Recife (Pernambuco-Brazil).
ileanas2@illinois.edu
Ileana is a graduate student in the Geography and Geographic Information Sciences. She was an organizer in Dallas, Texas for two years after graduating from her Bachelor’s from Sam Houston State University. She now focuses on political and urban geographies research while using a feminist theoretical framework.
Vicky is a graduate student in Geography and Geographic Information Sciences, and a Costa Rican–South Carolinian writer and researcher. Her work explores urban dispossession and ecological degradation in Costa Rica, focusing on San José's real estate-driven development. She challenges the country’s green image by examining extractivism, state-capital relations, and resistance in urban spaces. With global experience—from Ramallah to Buenos Aires—Vicky centers community-led place-making and contested urban citizenship. She is bilingual in Spanish and English, and conversational in Arabic (Levantine) and French
