selected projects

From 2024-2025, Lily served as a full-time land use consultant for NYC City Council Member Julie Won’s Land Use Team working directly on the Long Island City Neighborhood Plan (OneLIC). In this role, Lily provided land use technical expertise and advisory to the Council Member’s team and coordinated stakeholder engagement efforts to gain community input to shape the plan. OneLIC was approved by NYC’s City Council in November 2025. Read more about the plan here.

From 2022-2024, Lily served on the project team providing stakeholder engagement services to New Rochelle’s Department of Development for The LINC, a project that will redevelop the obsolete and never fully completed Memorial Highway into an innovative linear park and public open space in the heart of New Rochelle. Lily and her team provided stakeholder engagement advisory and implementation to collect community input to inform the project’s design. Read more about the project here.

In 2024, Lily served as the Community Construction Liaison for the Battery Coastal Resiliency project, part of the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project undertaken by NYCEDC and the NYC Parks Department to protect Lower Manhattan from inundation by rising sea levels and coastal storms. In coordination with the broader project team, Lily and her colleagues coordinated engagement with project stakeholders and community members. Learn more about the project here.

In 2023, Lily served on the project team that led course development for The City University of New York’s (CUNY) Bridges to Offshore Wind Training program, an interactive instructional seminar for people interested in learning about the region’s offshore wind industry and pursuing technical training for careers in the industry within the CUNY system. The program was launched in the fall of 2023 by the CUNY Offshore Wind Advisory Network. Learn more about the program here.

In 2022, Lily supported stakeholder outreach and engagement efforts as part of the consultant team developing the NYC Waterfront Pathways Program for the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). The program was launched in 2023 to counter disparities in public procurement by increasing opportunities for minority-owned, women-owned, and disadvantaged business enterprises in the offshore wind and waterfront industries. Learn more about the program here.

As a 2021-2022 Morgan Stanley/ANHD Community Development Fellow working at Cooper Square Committee, Lily assisted with the research and publication of a report on the East Village commercial district produced as a joint venture between Cooper Square, Village Preservation, and East Village Community Coalition. Released in July 2022, the report highlights the neighborhood’s business landscape and explores the impact of COVID-19 on the East Village merchant community. Read the full report here.

In 2022, Lily conducted a study on school garden programs and policy in NYC as her graduate thesis for Hunter College. The study includes a literature review of current school garden programs and citywide policy and stakeholder interviews with nonprofit leaders, researchers, and policymakers. The project aimed to propose solutions for improving the effectivity and equity of school garden program implementation at school sites across NYC.

In 2021, while exploring urban public health in her graduate coursework, Lily researched healthcare access for Sunset Park residents. Drawing from community leader interviews and secondary research, the report examined the many barriers that the largely immigrant population in the Sunset Park neighborhood faces and the additional challenges that COVID-19 raised for the neighborhood and NYC’s healthcare system.

In 2020, Lily and a team of fellow Hunter College graduate students conducted research on NYC community gardens and local food systems for the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets. The study included expert interviews, a survey of NYC community gardeners, and a focus group with members of the Phoenix Community Garden. The report concluded that community gardens play a critical role in providing access to fresh produce for local residents and serving as sites for community-based food system education and empowerment.