Our Impact Team

We believe that every student, of every age, in every community, is entitled to question and create. When provided with the tools and mentorship to harness design as a catalyst for learning, students are empowered to both imagine a more equitable world and to build one.

Leadership Team

Irina Schneid, AIA
Founder, Design Director

Irina Schneid, RA, AIA, is an architect, educator, and co-designer. Assistant Professor of Interior Design at Pratt, Irina serves as the Community Engagement Liaison for the School of Design. In her role, she oversees interdisciplinary co-design courses and projects in partnership with local organizations and K-12 schools, and directs the Community Engagement Clinic. Deeply committed to expanding community outreach through her teaching and practice, Irina is the Founder and Design Director of Impact Wrkshp, a social impact organization for women in design. Recipient of the 2025 Taconic Fellowship, 2022 Center K-12 Faculty Fellowship, the 2021 CTL Pratt Faculty Fellowship, and the 2020 IIDA Impact Award, Irina’s research explores methodologies for integrating participatory process into design pedagogy and seeks to support community engagement institute-wide. Her forthcoming book, The Essential Guide to Co-Design will be released through Routledge this Fall. Irina is licensed in New York and New Jersey and has lectured and taught internationally. Teaching appointments include Barnard College, Columbia University, Temple University, Drexel University, CityTech, NYIT, and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Melbourne, Australia. Irina earned her B.Arch and M.Arch II from Cornell University and is licensed in New York and New Jersey.

Summer 2021 Impact Fellows

Our 2021 interdisciplinary team of fellows will collaborate on the design of PS 5 Pop Up Art Gallery, a flexible exhibition space that transforms found materials into a modular art display system for K-8th grade students in Jersey City, NJ.

Ellie Bazurto
BID, Industrial and Interaction Design,
Syracuse University

Katrina Macaro
BS, Industrial Design, NJIT

Coco Allred
BFA Fine Art, Carnegie Mellon University
Minor in Human Computer Interaction

Summer 2020 Impact Fellows

Our 2020 interdisciplinary team of fellows collaborated on the design of Covid-KIT, a kit of environmental wearables which reimagines social distancing guidelines to bring people together rather than keeping them apart.

Kemper Fagan
M. Arch. University of Michigan,
B.A. Architecture, Clemson University

Tracy Llewellyn
M.A. Exhibition and Experience Design, Fashion Institute of Technology,
B.A. Industrial Design, Pratt Institute

Hailey Windsor
B.A. Human-Centered Design, University of California, Berkeley

Summer 2019 Impact Fellows

Our 2019 fellows designed and fabricated The Hammock Room, a set of interactive partitions to help divide an open plan classroom into activity zones for yoga, art-therapy, and writing, to help students reduce stress, develop relaxation and breathing skills, and unleash creativity through art and writing.