Our Team
Laila Fozouni
(co-founder)
Laila is a resident physician in Internal Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). She is also a graduate from the University of California Berkeley and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, where she received a degree in quantitative methods. Her research explores issues of stigma and displacement, with a particular focus on how the built environment impacts the mental health, resilience, and long-term outcomes of displaced populations. Her research specifically focuses on addiction, international displacement, and urban unhoused populations.
Sara Dean
(expert advisor)
Sara Dean is a designer and architect in the Bay Area. Her work is centered on civic engagement, and designs for empowerment and collective agency. She is Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts, co-founder of IF/THEN Studio, a collaborative community platform, and Chief Designer at Modern Empathy, a universal-design line of homes.
Elena Clarke-Manandise
(designer, co-founder)
Elena is a designer trained in architecture and urban planning at the University of Florida, the Politecnico di Milano, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on integrating ethnographic research into the development of urban policies and practical design solutions with the goal of creating living environments for displaced populations that extend beyond basic shelter.
Benner Boswell
(industrial designer)
Benner is an industrial designer and researcher interested in intersections and interdependencies between human and non-human systems. He holds a B.A. in Studio Art and History from Wheaton College in Norton, MA, and an MFA in Design from California College of the Arts. Benner’s open-ended research-based work creates tools and provocations that connect people to ground, place, and imagination through object-driven site-specific interactions and interventions. His work is highly informed by material culture and logistics systems.