Bio
Areti Kotsoni is a professional architect, urbanist, and educator from Crete, Greece. She is a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the School of Architecture and Planning, pursuing a concentration in Advanced Urbanism and affiliated with the MIT Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU).
Her research investigates how tourism, heritage, conflict, and migration reshape historic cities and everyday life—combining critical cartography, spatial analysis, and ethnography to render inequalities visible and actionable through public-facing visual tools and participatory methods.
Kotsoni brings a design-mapping approach to urban questions. She is a registered architect in Greece and holds a Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the Technical University of Crete and a Master in Design Studies (Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology) from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she also worked as a Research Associate. Her work includes research and fieldwork across Greece, Cyprus, Tunisia, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, and she has taught, published, and lectured with institutions including MIT, Harvard, Columbia GSAPP, the Architectural Association, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Yale, and Sapienza University of Rome.
Her research investigates how tourism, heritage, conflict, and migration reshape historic cities and everyday life—combining critical cartography, spatial analysis, and ethnography to render inequalities visible and actionable through public-facing visual tools and participatory methods.
Kotsoni brings a design-mapping approach to urban questions. She is a registered architect in Greece and holds a Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the Technical University of Crete and a Master in Design Studies (Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology) from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she also worked as a Research Associate. Her work includes research and fieldwork across Greece, Cyprus, Tunisia, Italy, and Saudi Arabia, and she has taught, published, and lectured with institutions including MIT, Harvard, Columbia GSAPP, the Architectural Association, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Yale, and Sapienza University of Rome.
Funding (selected)
Awards (selected)
- 2026 (IAP) | PKG Fellowship — Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center, MIT
- 2025 | Center for International Studies Grant — MIT
- 2025 | PKG-DUSP Fellowship — Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center, MIT
- Racially Just Research Grant, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
- A. Onassis Foundation Scholarship (2020-2022 for Harvard studies & 2024-2027 for MIT studies)
- Cyprus Children's Fund
- S. Ioannou Foundation Scholarship
- Foundation of Education and European Culture Fund
- Harvard Hellenic Foundation Fund
- Harvard GSD MDes Research and Development Award
- Harvard Center for European Studies Grant
- Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Grant
Awards (selected)
- 2024 | Academic Achievement Award — Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE)
- 2019 | Award of Excellence — Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Greece
- 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 | TUC Awards of Excellence (ranked 1st among 113 students)