where i'm from
I was born into a mixed family of immigrants and grew up on the traditional homelands of the Timucuan Peoples now known as Jacksonville, Florida, shaped by coastal marshlands and shoreline light, learning early on that place is alive with memories and migration stories.
Before relocating to Virginia in 2017, I came up through a decade of performing arts school and technical theatre production: making temporary worlds by hand and learning how to deliver collaborative craft with precision, timing, and care.
At UVA, I moved deeper into planning and preservation while staying close to architectural design-thinking, training my mind to understand complex systems and my heart for service in community.
My mystical grounding and intuitive confidence are entangled with that disciplinary rigor. Lifelong devotion to contemplative study, ceremony, yoga, and nature-based practice keeps me in reverence and conscious relationship with Mother Earth (the World Soul) and Father Sky (the Cosmos)—our Source GOD.
what i do
I’m an interdisciplinary planner and designer by training. I work where vision and strategy meet the physical world—land, institutions, capital, and consequence. I listen for patterns to discern the jewel of clarity. I name the truth that is hiding in plain sight. I help teams translate complexity into direction for decision-making: clear narratives, credible programs and grounded action plans that can be built and stewarded.
Overall, my formation spans across urban governance and politicized power, environmental systems, organizational change, spatial materiality, visual communication, and cultural heritage inquiry. I’m drawn to work that holds equity and ecology together with historical awareness and relational accountability, especially where conventional planning frameworks often flatten what people carry and remember.
I’m also trained in embodied reflection—treating the body as a site of valuable, sensorial knowledge. Attention, awe, and wise restraint. Not as an imposed aesthetic but as an integrative method. Because the future deserves clarity that resonates and direction that can be felt and shared.
how i work
My work lives across campuses, cultural and civic landscapes, waterfronts, parks, heritage sites, and the residential-visitor economies that shape them. Critiquing systems is necessary but incomplete without asking how they are designed, governed, financed, and sustained—and what it would take to unbuild and remake them with integrity.
My process is intuitive, collaborative, rigorous, and deeply place-based. In practice, this emerges through customized engagements and co-creative synthesis, technical field observation and somatic site reading, interpretive mapping, design workshops and strategic frameworks. Then, meaning is marked through carefully crafted artifacts and living graphic materials that carry alignment across audiences: diagrams, decks, reports, and playbooks.
what i'm building
My scholarship and practice dwell at the intersection of real estate, planning, design, and hospitality—including recreation, tourism, lodging, food and beverage, health and wellness and the many more-than-human agents who shape these systems.
My research is shaping an applied lens that I call Conscious Development : a way of linking disciplines and sectors toward outcomes that are economically viable and socially and ecologically restorative. I’m moving toward projects that steward places so they can become more truthful, more livable, and more life-giving.
where i'm going
In the near term, I’m focused on deepening private-firm experience in planning, programming, and design strategy to sharpen my delivery for clients across scales and sectors.
Later, I intend to continue my doctoral education applying sacred and participatory planning for private and public development in coastal ecologies and local/indigenous communities, while continuing to publish and translate the work into relevant and publicly accessible scholarship.
Longer-term, I dream of teaching and maturing into academic and executive leadership. I want to restore harmony on our planet, to build the kind of institutional stewardship that balances innovative operational excellence and integrative relational ethics over time, and to create an abundant societal inheritance that inspires the future for generations to come. ~
testimonials
Eric Bathras
Director of Business Services,
Bowler Pons Solutions Consultants
"From Day 1, Genesis has has undoubtedly taken ownership of her time here. She performs all her work with minimal oversight, illustrating her ability to successfully evaluate, analyze, partner, and then produce what Bowler Pons needs. She has delivered designs that will be implemented in internal, public, and client facing environments. The Graphic Standards Book will help Bowler Pons move forward in our digital evolution."
Kate Melton
Director of Career Communities,
UVA Career Center
"Not only is Genesis an absolute joy to be around, she is one of the most competent students I have ever worked with. She knows how to ask the right questions to figure out the best approach to a task, and she has the emotional intelligence of someone twice her age. I would recommend her for any team who is ready to do thoughtful, creative, people-centered work."
Michelle Ball
Director of Career Peer Educator Program,
UVA Career Center
"Genesis is creative and possesses a wonderful eye for design, but what I really admire about her is her ability to see the big picture, solve problems, and find ways to improve the organization of which she is a part. She is a fantastic collaborator and is one of my most reliable, thoughtful employees."
Kyle Sturgeon
Assistant Dean + Professor,
UVA School of Architecture
"Genesis consistently brings a burst of positive energy, inquiry, and talent into the classroom. She strives to gather knowledge from each encounter with professors and peers. I’ve observed her as a collaborative leader in team settings and an excellent independent thinker on solo assignments. I have no doubt that she is a change-maker!"
Kyle Lutrell
Project Manager,
Howard Shockey & Sons Construction
"Genesis’ enthusiasm to take on any task really stood out to me. Not only can she 'get the job done' but her eagerness to ask questions to understand how our industry works was impressive."
Julia Warner
Graduate Teaching Assistant,
Sociolinguistics
"Genesis was a joy to work with! Her energy and enthusiasm always brightened the classroom and she always had something thoughtful to contribute. She was an excellent role model for her peers who were nervous about speaking up in class."