At the intersection of sustainable design strategies and data-driven community advocacy, Savalee Tikle is an Urban Design Graduate Student at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. An architect and urban research practitioner from Mumbai, she specializes in urban innovations and design paradigms, with professional experience at Perkins Eastman Architects DPC and SEArch Design Studio.
Her work is grounded in sustainable urbanism and shaped by fellowships such as YLAC, PUKAR, and LEAP Cities, alongside collaborations with NGOs and placemaking initiatives. Most recently, as a Harvard Bloomberg Summer Fellow with the City Leadership Initiative in Indiana, she created the city’s first GIS-based blight database and developed a replicable revitalization model reframing underutilized sites as opportunity zones for housing, public space, and economic growth, a project that garnered coverage in local news and magazines.
Across her career, Savalee has led community-based research addressing grassroots issues, contributed to policy drafting, and conducted multi-sectoral studies on urban development, transportation, waste management, poverty, and gender dynamics. Through her cross-disciplinary and systemic approach, she seeks to weave design, policy, and community insight into strategies that foster resilient, inclusive, and equitable urban futures, leaving an impact that resonates across geographies.
