TEAM
Ellen Neises, RLA
LANDSCAPE & PUBLIC POLICY
Ellen is a registered landscape architect with a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard and 9 years of policy experience. She teaches landscape design, with a focus on large-scale and large-scope design problems involving ecology, at the Graduate School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Executive Director of PennPraxis, the center for applied research, outreach, and practice at PennDesign. Ellen co-led the PennDesign / OLIN team’s work on Hunts Point Lifelines, a winning entry in the 2014 Rebuild by Design competition. Prior to Range and Penn, Ellen was an associate partner at James Corner Field Operations, where she designed several award-winning projects involving resilience, reclamation and infrastructure design, including Fresh Kills Park, Lake Ontario Park in Toronto, Westport Baltimore redevelopment, and stormwater infrastructure on the Harlem River at Muscota Marsh. Ellen has a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania (2002), a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University (1990) and a Bachelor of Science form Carnegie Mellon University (1988).
Yelena Zolotorevskaya
LANDSCAPE & URBAN PLANNING
Yelena is a landscape designer and planner at RANGE. Her interests include social impact design and the social and economic landscape of cities. Prior to RANGE she worked as a Project Designer at James Corner Field Operations on two major urban projects: the Presidio Parklands in San Francisco and Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. Yelena was a designer on Hunts Point Lifelines, helping to develop flood defense infrastructure and community facility design. Before that, she worked for the Municipal Art Society on issues created by privately owned public spaces, at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on Bay Area regional planning issues, and at Green Map on environmental education. Yelena holds a Master in Landscape Architecture (2014) and a Master in City and Regional Planning (2012) from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Urban Studies from the New School (2008).
Claire Hoch
LANDSCAPE & FINE ART
Claire is a landscape designer and artist collaborating with RANGE. She is fascinated by the relationships and influences that affect places over time, with a particular interest in landscapes that are heavily worked. Through research and creative speculation, Claire instigates alternative forms of engagement and investment in places that merge ecological health with cultural values. Her design work bridges regional patterns of land use and ecology with the material histories and long-term relationships that people have with very small sites. Recently she led the research effort to establish the Atlas for the End of the World, an extensive mapping project that catalogues the status of conservation targets in biodiversity hotspots worldwide. While working as a project designer for McGregor Coxall in Melbourne, she developed a master plan for a 35-mile hiking trail across the southeastern portion of the Australian Alps National Park. Claire has also worked on and managed organic farms in Pittsburgh and Central Virginia, built rammed earth houses in Guatemala and run a gourmet diner out of a vintage travel trailer. She holds a Master in Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania (2014) and Bachelors in fine art and critical theory from Carnegie Mellon University (2008).