Marcel is a Senior Planner at RPA. He provides technical expertise and research capabilities to the organization. He combines systemic thinking with design, spatial analysis, and data visualization to support the organization’s planning and advocacy efforts at both the regional and neighborhood level. His work includes a broad range of projects and campaigns at the intersections of land use, infrastructure, and health.

Prior to joining RPA, Marcel was a Senior Project Manager at the Municipal Art Society of New York where he helped inform positions regarding citywide policies and precedent-setting land-use decisions. He also has experience in stormwater and waterfront infrastructure planning, where he worked as a planning consultant for Insight Civil Engineering, Community Boards 9 and 10 in the Bronx, and various architectural design firms. Prior to this, he was a graduate research intern at New York City’s Department of City Planning, Fund for the City of New York, and the non-for-profit organization New Yorkers for Parks.

He has participated as a guest lecturer at the Mellon Forum on the Urban Environment at Princeton University, Pace University Land Use Law Center, and New York University Guarini Center for the Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law, among others. He has also been an invited panelist at various regional conferences, including the New York State Affordable Housing Conference, NYC Hindsight Planning Conference, Waterfront Alliance retreat, and Tipping Point Housing Conference in Connecticut.

Marcel has a master’s degree in Urban Environmental Systems from the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment (GCPE) and holds a bachelor’s from the School of Architecture and Design, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. He is a recipient of an American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) research honor award, a drum machine aficionado, and above all a proud parent. He also teaches at Pratt Institute’s Graduate School of Architecture.