Mitchell
Sipus

Initially trained as a conceptual artist, Mitchell Sipus is well equipped with a diverse body of tools to provide innovative solutions to complex problems. Upon completion of his BFA at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Mitchell received a grant to travel for several months across Asia in 2004/2005. While hitchhiking across the Himalayas, he formulated a new goal: to work toward the sustainable economic development of the world’s most marginalized populations. To pursue this new objective he promptly began dual Masters Degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Cincinnati. Within his first year of graduate studies he served as a delegate to the United Nations 45th Commission of Social and Economic Development with the NGO SustainUS. Seeking a means to build upon the political frameworks discussed at the UN within the field, Mitchell afterward initiated a project in collaboration with the UN, CARE International, and the Norwegian Refugee Council to pursue a comprehensive assessment of the refugee shelter systems and physical planning at the Dadaab Refugee Camps located on the border of Kenya and Somalia in 2007. As refugee populations must live within a complex state of socio-political temporality, the construction of refugee settlements hosts challenges for which few Community Planners are prepared. Yet as refugee settlements develop greater levels of sophistication within their economic, spatial, social and legal systems, Mitchell recognized the increasing demand for community planners within these complex, and sometimes volitile circumstances as geo-political conflicts continue to proliferate across the globe. Seeking to o deepen his understanding of the circumstances which refugee populations encounter while working to advance the Sustainable Planning of refugee settlements, Mitchell received a Fulbright Grant from the United States Department of State to pursue a one year Post-Graduate Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at American University of Cairo for the 2008/2009 year.