The power of subnational actors on a transnational Belt and Road Initiative project: Kenyan county governor interventions in the Standard Gauge Railway

King's College London Master's of Global Affairs Dissertation, September 2020

The Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), a flagship Belt and Road Initiative project, has attracted international attention with media denouncements of the project as ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ or neocolonialism and igniting debate around Kenya’s agency in its relations with China. This discourse, however, largely ignores the role of Kenya’s domestic political structures and power dynamics in the planning and construction of the SGR. To address this gap between the subnational and transnational level, this dissertation seeks to determine why some county governors had more power than others over the SGR process, and what effects this power had at the local level. Employing a comparative case study of Taita-Taveta and Nakuru Counties, it finds that the difference in power was a result of governor partisanship in Kenya’s asymmetrical devolved system of governance.

With, Not For: Community design in Murphy Park, Poughkeepsie, NY

Vassar College Urban Studies Thesis, May 2017. Awarded Distinction

This thesis was a community-based design and build project located in Murphy Park, Poughkeepsie. Using a variety of engagement methods, we worked with local residents to gather information and ideas on how to improve the space. Through our partnership with the Middle Main Initiative, the owner of the park, we were ultimately able to design and build a physical intervention, but this process required us to negotiate the complex relationship between community development nonprofits and public space. While formally a design project, this thesis was also an exploration of contested urban space, the complicated meaning of “community” design in fragmented cities, and the interpretive role that designers play in creating spaces with, not for, a variety of constituencies.

The project was featured on the Potpourri Podcast

Reimagining calligraphy: Hanzi in contemporary graphic design

Vassar College Chinese Thesis, May 2017

This research and design project explored the usage of Hanzi in Chinese graphic design, with a focus on the typography of the characters of themselves. This included research on contemporary Chinese visual culture, the influence of historical typeface styles, and the process of designing character sets. Using this research, I created a piece of design that presented the usage of Hanzi in contemporary graphic design. This took the form of a visual identity, including a logo, presented in print and digital mediums. Chinese graphic tradition is rich in material – each character reveals meaning along with an understanding of form. The craftsmanship design of Hanzi is a booming field as creative industries become progressively more important to contemporary China.