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Giovania has over a decade of experience designing and executing participatory planning with low-income communities of color in the non-profit and public sectors. They most recently served as Deputy Director of Neighborhood Planning at the NYC Housing Preservation and Development in the Office of Neighborhood Strategies. There, Giovania managed several high-profile initiatives, including The Brownsville Plan and Where We Live NYC, the City's comprehensive fair housing initiative. They designed and led over 30 large-scale community workshops and hundreds of community meetings across four boroughs, engaging thousands of New Yorkers of various racial/ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, national, and economic backgrounds and abilities.

 

Between 2015-2020, Giovania co-founded and co-chaired the Diversity Committee (DivComm) of the American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter, and was a co-founder and lead organizer for the annual Hindsight Conference, a conference on urban planning through an equity lens.

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In a consulting capacity, Giovania has worked most recently with Habitat for Humanity International's Housing and Community Strategy team to create anti-racism training materials and support operationalizing racial and social equity into their neighborhood revitalization work across the country.

 

Giovania holds an M.S. in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a B.A. in Sociology from Dickinson.