Laila Abed - advocacy Intern

Laila Abed is a rising junior at Columbia University majoring in Urban Studies with a specialization in Public Health. She is passionate about community-led planning, reproductive justice, and equitable urban development. Her work explores how surveillance technologies shape public space, social welfare, and economic development—particularly their impact on women, immigrants, and Muslim and Arab American communities. Laila is committed to reimagining cities through frameworks of care, cultural preservation, and resistance to racialized surveillance. She is especially interested in how safe participatory design can protect vulnerable communities. Her interests include tenant rights, mutual aid, green infrastructure, and menstrual equity. She plans to pursue graduate studies in Urban Planning to further her focus on justice-driven, people-first city design.