I have graduated architecture and urban planning from the “Ion Mincu” University in Bucharest with a MA thesis on the topic of brownfield redevelopment through temporary and adaptive site reuse and the potential of Creative Industry Business Accelerators for redevelopment. Main output of the research was the development of a business plan that would take into account both short and long term development strategies with a strong focus on stakeholder networks that could be developed through such interdisciplinary redevelopment projects.

Currently I’m a student of Erasmus Mundus Master programme in Urban Studies - 4Cities. 4Cities, UNICA Euromaster in urban studies is a unique two-year interdisciplinary and international programme. 4Cities takes students to Brussels, Copenhagen, Vienna, Madrid and a number of surrounding cities.

Previously, I have studied abroad for 3 months in London in a training program focusing on Place Making and Community Engagement and have also travelled a great deal as part of other workshops and personal trips: the Balkans, Central Europe, the Mediterranean, Norther Africa and Benelux.

I am the founding member of Poiana lui Iocan Association, a nonprofit think-tank in Bucharest bridging together architecture and design practice and research and mediation for community engagement and participation. Recently our focus has shifted from place-specific interventions to a broader data driven research on cities. We are interested in exploring the potential of open data and tech as a means to complement our existing practice and in order to engage other professions in complex aspects of urban development. In order to do so we created Urboteca, an itinerant pop-up consultation pavilion which showcases city data analysis and explores new tools for engaging in urban matters (board game, participatory mapping, awareness campaigns etc.)

I am curious and creative, but analytical. I am always working on projects that have the potential to build new cross-sector collaborations and strongly believe in the need to reexamine our institutional problem-solving mechanisms and the way researchers interact with their audience through multi-media, social networking, world wide web and applied, field based research.