Meet the Team
Academic & Institutional Team
Outside Critic / LA Metro Representative
Moshik Santo Mah, AIA CPD LEED AP
Deputy Executive Officer Transit Architecture
Woodbury University Fourth-Year Architecture Students
Ania Avanesian Konaraki
Ania, an Armenian born in Iran, has a deep passion for photography and a keen eye for the beauty in small details. She is equally fascinated by the hidden poetry of infrastructure bridges, pipes, and power lines finding elegance in the overlooked frameworks that hold the world together.
Infrastructure: Drinking Water
Dawson Cabrera
As a home gardener, Dawson draws from his experience growing crops like strawberries and hot peppers to inform restorative strategies in his architectural work. His hands-on understanding of soil health guides the integration of urban agriculture and ecological remediation within underserved communities.
Infrastructure: Freight Rail and Warehouses
Diane Lee
Diane is from South Korea, who deeply passionate about the art of pottery. Driven by her love for transforming clay into functional art like dinnerware, she’s now focusing her creative energy on a larger scale: depaving streets. Her vision involves repurposing the reclaimed materials into permeable pavers for depaved street, and repavement of major roadways, while transforming the depaved areas into vibrant community gathering spaces.
Infrastructure: Roads and Sidewalks
Jorge Bayardo
Skateboarding isn’t just how Jorge gets around, it’s how he stays connected to the city in a low impact way; inspiring his architectural interest in sustainable urban mobility. In his design work, he focuses on integrating sustainability through thoughtful material choices and environmentally responsive solutions that strengthen the connection between projects and the communities they serve.
Infrastructure: Passenger Rail
Joseph Ortiz
Joseph takes great joy in exploring the nature he encounters while hiking or even just driving around Los Angeles. He is interested in modern architectural approaches that blend nature with urban environments and is especially drawn to the potential of overlooked spaces, such as bridges and underpasses, to be reimagined as places for engagement, leisure, and public life.
Infrastructure: Bridges and Viaducts
Kevin Shahbaziyan
Kevin Shahbaziyan is an Armenian born in Iran with a love and passion for woodworking. With the experiences of different weather conditions from the places he has lived, he is the perfect candidate to tackle the issues of the Heat Island Effect plus the knowledge he has obtained in the years of woodworking, he becomes the go-to person to seek what should be destroyed to create a new path for the future in our own streets.
Infrastructure: Street Grid
Kyle Chiu
Kyle is a designer with a passion for building computers and understanding complex systems. His approach to infrastructure reflects this curiosity, utilizing in-depth systems-thinking to create resilient solutions.
Infrastructure: Stormwater and Flood Control
Laura Sarkisyan
Laura is a Russian Armenian creative soul who discovered her passion for art and creativity in her hometown in Russia. She graduated from two secondary art schools before moving to Los Angeles, where she began reflecting on her future path. Driven by a desire to help others and a deep love for creative expression, Laura found her calling in architecture, a field where she could merge both passions into one meaningful profession.
Infrastructure: Freeways
Marvin Ayllon
Marvin’s design methodology focuses on solving current problems in infrastructure and freight logistics. This allows his research to remain relevant as he jumps into familiar topics, and figures out how connect back to his projects.
Infrastructure: Ports and Freight Logistics
Nelli Sharafyan
Nelli is an Armenian immigrant whose firsthand experience with public transportation in Armenia showed her how transit can be more than just a way to go around, it can be meaningful part of community life. Her proposals reflect this vision by blending functionality with cultural expression, transforming transit into a shared human-centered experience.
Infrastructure: Bus Transit
Sam Hudson
Sam spends her free time walking shelter dogs at Wags and Walks, where she’s come to appreciate how much outdoor spaces matter for people and pets alike. Her current project investigates the spatial and social impacts of the power infrastructure, examining how its byproducts can be reimagined as public community spaces.
Infrastructure: Power and Energy