2003 Knight Scholars

Leslye G. Howerton

Leslye received her BArch and MArch degrees from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where she was introduced to the principles of New Urbanism during graduate school. Her understanding of traditional town planning practices was reinforced and deepened during periods of study and post-graduate teaching in Rome; after finishing her graduate degree in 2000 she taught an urban design studio in Rome with Caterina Frisone, a Venetian architect.

She enrolled in the Suburb and Town Design Program to become more well-versed in the background and academic theory of New Urbanism and urban design. 

Leslye is currently taking a leave of absence from Torti Gallas and Partners, a New Urbanist firm based in Silver Spring, MD, where she worked from 1999-2003. Her work there concentrated on the Hope VI program of creating neighborhood revitalization through the creation of livable, mixed income communities. Among the projects she worked on were Flaghouse Courts in Baltimore and Laurel Homes in Cincinnati.

For her Knight Program assistantship, Leslye will conduct research on affordable housing, help coordinate the Knight Program exhibition in spring 2004, and contribute to research for a New Urbanism reader.

Christina Miller

Christina received an MArch degree from the University of Miami in 2003 and enrolled in the Suburb and Town Design program to learn more about the practical and cultural applications of urbanism. She is particularly interested in exploring ways to improve people’s quality of life through improving their physical environments. To that end, she is pursuing knowledge of how to design healthy living environments that foster a sense of community and are respectful of the natural environment.

Christina received her BS in Economics with a minor in Architectural Studies from Connecticut College in 1996. She then gained experience in the social, political, and practical components of city building. She spent 1.5 years leading a crew in concrete construction at Arcosanti, a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented prototype city in the desert north of Phoenix, AZ, and an extreme example of a planned community. She next worked with a public-private development corporation on the revitalization of New London, CT, a New England city whose decline followed the typical deterioration pattern of many older US cities. 

Her interest in urbanism has been enhanced by extensive travel in the US and abroad, which has allowed her to observe alternatives to current US growth patterns. She has spent semesters in Pau and Paris, France; Oxford, England; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Rome, Italy; and Tokyo, Japan.  She has also spent time in the Czech Republic and Hungary, and much of Western Europe.

Through the Suburb and Town Design Program, Christina hopes to learn how to achieve the goals of preserving larger proportions of land, natural resources, and people’s time while improving the physical and social quality of people’s lives.

Christina’s assistantship work will include editing and fact checking a resource manual on gentrification and contributing to research for a New Urbanism reader.

Milt Rhodes

Milt is a graduate of the College of Charleston (BA Geology, ’93) and the State University of New York at Buffalo (Master of Urban Planning, ’95). Since then he has worked in Charleston, SC and Raleigh, NC with state environmental planning and permitting agencies. Milt's focus was on the interaction between development and water resources of the coastal zone and within watersheds.

During this work, Milt was engaged in community development from the perspective of mitigating development impacts to communities and people. Prior to enrolling in the Suburb and Town Design program, Milt was director of Planning and Program Development for the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance. In addition, Milt was a 2002 Knight Program Fellow in Community Building. For his fellowship research, Milt investigated traditional communities and the regulations and codes that managed the environmental resources of their respective regions.

As part of his assistantship, Milt will conduct research for a New Urbanism reader, coordinate research on the transect, and participate in the development of seminars for practitioners and students of urbanism.