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Professional Experience

New York, NY

Assistant Vice President, Neighborhood Strategies; September 2022-Present

Senior Project Manager, Neighborhood Strategies; February 2021-September 2022

Project Manager, Neighborhood Strategies; August 2018-February 2021

  • Leads and supports visioning, strategy, planning and engagement for complex urban development projects. Oversees interns and fellows, as well as junior department staff on a project-by-project basis; Manages consultant teams and contracts, interdepartmental and interagency partners, and project stakeholders; Writes RFPs and manages selection and budget processes; Creates and executes public messaging and engagement strategies; Conducts urban planning research and analysis; Develops recommendations and strategies for decision-making; Creates presentations, reports, maps, diagrams, interactive tools, and other visual and written materials.

  • Current/recent projects: Future of Fifth, Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, citywide greenways strategy, LIC public sites development.

New York, NY

Analyst Fellow; May-August 2017

  • Supported qualitative and quantitative research, GIS analysis, and business development. 

Boston, MA

Analyst, Research and Advisory Practice; December 2013-July 2016

  • Led and supported qualitative and quantitative research, including stakeholder interviews, data analysis, and survey design and implementation, and report writing and production for food systems resilience, industry clusters, small business financing, incubators and accelerators, and anchor institution procurement projects. Clients included Rockefeller Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Small Business Forward initiative, Prudential Foundation, and Central Corridor Anchor Partnership.

Philadelphia, PA

Summer of Maps Fellow; June-August 2013 (3 months)

  • Performed advanced geospatial analysis using ArcGIS and map design for projects in partnership with Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children and Sunlight Foundation.

Education

Master in Urban Planning, 2018

Concentration: Urban Design

2018 Award for Excellence in Project-Based Urban Planning

Harvard Urban Planning Organization: Co-President, 2017-2018; Board Member, 2016-2017

  • Option Studios: Urban Disobedience: 99 Provocations to Disrupt Injustice in St. Louis (Urban Planning & Design, Toni Griffin); Phantom Coast: Transforming San Francisco's Eastern Waterfront (Landscape Architecture, James Lord & Roderick Wyllie).

Bryn Mawr, PA

Bachelor of Arts, 2013, Magna Cum Laude

Major: Growth and Structure of Cities; Minor: Environmental Studies

  • Thesis: You Can't Get There from Here: Knee-Jerk Parking Policies as Roadblocks to Sustainable Transit Planning in Chicago's Loop.

Software Skills

  • Expert: Microsoft Office, ArcGIS.

  • Proficient: Adobe Illustrator & InDesign.

  • Basic: Rhinoceros; SketchUp; Adobe Photoshop.

  • LinkedIn

©2018 by Lena Ferguson

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