Each summer, the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities offers Cornell AAP undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to participate in a range of domestic and international internships that place them in proximity to complex urban planning, policy, and design work within New York City government offices, dynamic NGOs such as RISE, WE ACT, and Slum Dwellers International, and essential nonprofit organizations advocating for community needs.
In 2026, these activities included the opportunity to work with RISE (Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity), one of the center's valued partners led by Executive Director Jeanne DuPont. RISE was founded in 2005 to strategize the redevelopment of underutilized public land in the interest of local residents of Far Rockaway, Queens.
Over ten weeks this past summer, a four-student team comprised of Kerrianne Chiu (B.S. URS '26), Elena Weingart (M.R.P. '27), Ivy Lei (B.Arch. '28), and Seungho Kang ('27) led community engagement around urban design activities, including two participatory workshops that informed the development of a proposal for an area known as Motts Basin. This process encouraged community members to reimagine how existing industrial sites and the surrounding area could be repurposed to better serve local residents. Their work was supported by center staff members Ben Wilde and Claire Fisher.
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