Meet CED Alums

Meet Arcus Social Justice Corps Fellows — Rashida Chase (MRED+D 2024), Elizabeth Garcia (MLA 2027), and Sam Rodriguez (MArch + MCP 2026) — who are using design, planning, and research to impact communities.

Master of Urban Design alum Bageshri Thakar (MUD 2024) offers a compelling example of how College of Environmental Design students can immediately make a real impact on the built environment. Her thesis project, developed for a site in Livermore, California, led to working with the city’s planning department, which is now creating a land-use and policy framework based on her concept.  

The Urban Design Lab selected theses by two 2025 graduates of UC Berkeley’s Master of Urban Design program, Shivani Atre and Styliani Kalomoira Kontogianni, for publication in the 2025 UDL Thesis Publication.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation announced that Mexico City–based landscape architect Mario Schjetnan, who received his master of landscape architecture degree from UC Berkeley, and the firm he founded and leads, Grupo de Diseño Urbano, are the recipients of the 2025 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture.

Rachel Vineberg Jones (MArch 2019) and her husband Eric Jones have made a generous commitment to the College of Environmental Design to increase access to design education for North Bay high school students.