Sharon Ayalon

Sharon Ayalon is an architect, artist, curator, and researcher. As a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell Tech, her current research focuses on visualizations and simulations to achieve social impact in planning. Currently, she has focused on mapping NYC social distancing stories through interactive maps that aggregate people’s stories about living in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic. The maps combine individual stories with big data and content analysis. In addition, to harness technology to elicit social change, she has developed a Digital Twin for Roosevelt Island with a focus on equity and social justice. The digital twin integrates a 3D that can be scrolled back into history or fast forward into a simulated future as the first step towards an Urban Displacement Simulator.

Her Ph.D. explored the linkage between urbanism and art and how local identity, spatial (in)justice, and social (ex-in)clusion are forged or deconstructed by artistic activity in cities. This research was awarded the President of Israel’s Grant for Scientific Excellence and Innovation. Her work has been published in leading international peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Urban Design, City and Community, The Journal of Urban Affairs, and Cultural Sociology.

With a background as an architect, she combines her research interest with creating art installations, performances, and curatorial practice. She received her Ph.D. from the Architecture and Town Planning faculty at the Technion IIT, where she graduated summa cum laude BArch and MSc. Ayalon also served as the curator of the PeKA Gallery for experimental art at the Technion, Israel, and as the curator of the Gitai Architecture Museum in Haifa, Israel. At the Technion, she co-founded art.espionage, the Experimental Art and Architecture Lab.