Lena Kufferman

Lena Kufferman graduated from Dartmouth in 2025 with a double major in Geography and Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Advised by Dr. Mona Domosh, she wrote her senior thesis, "Hollow Choices: The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) and the Performance of Participation," which explored how federal HUD Choice Neighborhood Initiative (CNI) grants encourage consultant-led community engagement amidst privatization—using Bridgeport's final remaining public housing tower, the Charles F. Greene Homes, as a case study. Her work straddles the boundary between planning and geography, with an interest in public housing reconfiguration and participatory governance. As a postbaccalaureate in Dartmouth's Geography Department, she continues to explore how the urban precariat–made even more vulnerable by increasingly austere racial capitalism–navigate, resist, and live within contradictory and oftentimes performative neoliberal urban governance. Lena is looking forward to helping undergraduates craft rewarding thesis research plans, and engaging in what she believes to be the very best department at Dartmouth! During her free time, Lena loves finding new recipes, baking, crafts, and pampering her roommate's lovely cat.