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The Daily Hub

A roundup of ideas and projects from around the Institute

  • Sofi Thanhauser, adjunct associate professor – CCE of Writing, explores the history of the “war on cancer” in an essay for the Virginia Quarterly Review. “Buried beneath this evergreen drama of illness and cure, the promise of miracle biotech breakthroughs and heroic survivorship, is the story of how American business interests helped to steer politicians away from stopping the cancer epidemic at the source; how they helped to generate a mania for curing the disease and obstructed the analytic and moral clarity required to prevent it. Actually preventing cancer—far preferable to curing it, if less interesting—would mean asking why our cancer rates are so high in the first place.”  

  • Alumnus D’angelo Thompson shared his favorite books, as well as his favorite bookshop, with International Boy. Thompson also recently discussed his career pivots with Prattfolio

  • Michaela Chavelis Arroyo, BFA Fashion Design ’18, was featured in Jamaica Plain News for a feature that explores her career trajectory. “A lot of people see it [crochet] as such an old craft,” Arroyo said. “I wanted to bring that into the modern world in a different way.” 

  • The Pratt Center for Community Development shared a success story from their EnergyFit program, which equips small 1-4 family homes in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in Brooklyn—typically underserved by climate policy efforts—with energy-efficient upgrades such as insulation, air sealing and weather stripping, and high-efficiency appliances for free.

  • David Burney, visiting associate professor in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, and Marium Naveed, MS Urban and Community Planning ’23, write about bus stop design, including Naveed’s final thesis for Pratt, in Common Edge. “[Naveed’s] research found that some stations naturally supported public life, while others did not. The difference was in the surrounding built environment: public life thrived where there was room for people to linger, where there was traffic calming in place, and where there was clustering of small everyday activities nearby. When these three elements came together, station areas felt like part of a neighborhood.”

  • Pratt Trustee and alumnus Derrick Adams will be participating in the 2025 Untitled Art fair in Miami Beach this December. “Comprising over 100 galleries, the presentations feature a diverse array of artistic voices and spaces from 29 countries and territories.” 

  • Alyse Dees, MS Urban and Community Planning ’27, received the 2025 American Planning Association (APA) Foundation Diversity Scholarship. Dees is “interested in the intersection of architecture and urbanism because she views it as an opportunity to fuse creative storytelling with community engagement to build towards an equitable future,” School of Architecture News notes

More Pratt Institute News

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Investigating the Relationship Between Information and Human Rights

Graduate students created projects investigating how information systems shape power, rights, and democratic life for a course in the School of Information.
A close-up image of a person reclining against a green pillow, wearing a dark sweater. A decorative brooch featuring metallic gold and turquoise leaves and flowers is attached to the sweater. The person's hand, adorned with a ring, rests near the brooch. The background consists of a patterned rug.

Wearable Memories

From Pratt Institute News

Students transform personal memories into handmade, one-of-a-kind brooches in a junior jewelry studio.
Three individuals are shown in a collage. On the left, a person with long, braided hair, wearing large glasses and a red coat, smiles in front of green plants. In the middle, a person with a short beard and a wide smile, dressed in a light blue sweater over a white collared shirt, stands against a brown brick wall. On the right, a person with shoulder-length dark hair and glasses smiles brightly, wearing a black top, with a soft gray background.

Three Outstanding Graduates to be Honored at Pratt’s 2026 Alumni Achievement Awards

From Pratt Institute News

Pratt Institute alumni Nanette Carter, Vann Graves, and Lian Farhi will be honored for their creative and professional accomplishments.