Our Impact Team

We believe that every student, of every age, in every community, is entitled to question and create. When provided with the tools and mentorship to harness design as a catalyst for learning, students are empowered to both imagine a more equitable world and to build one.

Leadership Team

Irina Schneid, AIA
Founder, Design Director

Irina Schneid is an architect, educator, and co-designer. She is the Founder and Principal Architect of Scharc Studio L.L.C and has lectured and taught internationally. An Assistant Professor of Community Engaged Learning at Pratt Institute, Irina is deeply committed to expanding educational access and community outreach through her teaching and practice. She is the recipient of the 2022 Center K-12 Faculty Fellowship, the 2021 IIDA Impact Award and the 2020 CTL Faculty Fellowship for her research into amplifying design advocacy within design pedagogy. In 2014, Irina founded Impact Wrkshp as a springboard for social impact to help emerging female designers harness their training towards social good. Irina is licensed in New York and New Jersey.

Margaret Sause
Director of Impact Strategy

Maggie is a brand specialist, storyteller, and innovation designer. With over 15 years of experience designing and storytelling in the advertising industry, she has cultivated a passion for mentoring young creatives to design with empathy, pull creativity from unexpected places, and go outside of their comfort zone to create work they are proud of. She is passionate about the power of Design Thinking, and has expanded her focus to human-centered product design and development. She is currently attending the University of Southern California’s Iovine and Young Academy, pursuing a Masters degree in Integrated Design, Business, and Technology.

Summer 2021 Impact Fellows

Our 2021 interdisciplinary team of fellows will collaborate on the design of PS 5 Pop Up Art Gallery, a flexible exhibition space that transforms found materials into a modular art display system for K-8th grade students in Jersey City, NJ.

Ellie Bazurto
BID, Industrial and Interaction Design,
Syracuse University

Katrina Macaro
BS, Industrial Design, NJIT

Coco Allred
BFA Fine Art, Carnegie Mellon University
Minor in Human Computer Interaction

Summer 2020 Impact Fellows

Our 2020 interdisciplinary team of fellows collaborated on the design of Covid-KIT, a kit of environmental wearables which reimagines social distancing guidelines to bring people together rather than keeping them apart.

Kemper Fagan
M. Arch. University of Michigan,
B.A. Architecture, Clemson University

Tracy Llewellyn
M.A. Exhibition and Experience Design, Fashion Institute of Technology,
B.A. Industrial Design, Pratt Institute

Hailey Windsor
B.A. Human-Centered Design, University of California, Berkeley

Summer 2019 Impact Fellows

Our 2019 fellows designed and fabricated The Hammock Room, a set of interactive partitions to help divide an open plan classroom into activity zones for yoga, art-therapy, and writing, to help students reduce stress, develop relaxation and breathing skills, and unleash creativity through art and writing.