Designing Cities with Public Trust

Tiasia O'Brien is a third-time social entrepreneur with a decade of professional experience in leading strategic communications, fundraising, business development, and public-private initiatives. Tiasia's experience in working with community-based organizations and small businesses has given her deep insights into the complex nature of economic development.

Academically, Tiasia is a Qualitative Research Scientist with an Advanced Diploma in Data Analytics from NYU and an M.A. in Sociology from The New School, where she researched civic and community innovations to resolve social inequalities. Her research examines how models of civic engagement are working for low wealth communities. She coined the term, Civic Gap, which highlights the correlation between wealth and civic engagement. Her recent research focused on post-Great Migration Harlem in the early 1900s political engagement in Sugar Hill and Harlem Proper.

Autumn Beaudoin is a Research Scientist at Seam Social Labs (a B-Corp empowering communities by helping governments to do equitable engagement) and has been working at the intersection of research methods, user experience, and ethical data since 2016. After receiving their MSc from the London School of Economics in 2019 and being part of a Bloomberg Innovation team for a year and a half, Autumn now challenges governments to ask themselves what they are trying to achieve before helping them identify the best tool to achieve it - all while lifting up underlying community needs.