Christina Chi Zhang, Saybrook College

Christina Zhang, an architecture major graduating with distinction, is a visionary designer whose poetic approach to structures is matched by a passionate engagement with humanitarian concerns. Christina is the co-founder and director of a non-profit organization that has already completed its first project. Working in collaboration with refugees at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in north west Kenya, Christina has built a learning center inside the camp with funds she raised from the United Nations Refugee Agency. She is now in the process of staging an international competition to design a public market place for three refugee camps in Jordan, Germany and Kenya that will not only benefit the people who live there, but also illuminate the potential of design to reimagine refugee settlements in crisis. Her panel of jurors includes U.N. ambassadors, World Bank directors, and distinguished architects, planners, and policy makers. Christina’s initiatives embody the ideals of a humanistic education and engaged citizenship. And she has inspired us to appreciate architecture as a powerful artistic act that can help shape a better world. 

For her past accomplishments and her future promise, Yale College is honored to award the Louis Sudler Prize for excellence in the creative arts to Christina Zhang.