Leechen Zhu

Leechen is an aspiring designer with an interest in community-centric design through consensus-building and data collection. She will graduate from the Weitzman School of Design with an M.Arch in May 2024. She holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania with a double major in architecture and materials science, supplemented by a background in urban-scale research. She has worked as a student researcher in the Weitzman City Planning Department, studying the capacity of local nonprofits to implement affordable housing policy. Similarly, she held a student researcher role at the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, studying fossil-fuel impacts of the past and future Philadelphia Oil Refinery site. She has interned at firms such as MASS Design Group, EwingCole, and Thornton Tomasetti.