Adjunct Faculty

Jess Kuronen is a designer and owner of NYC rare bookstore Left Bank Books. The bookstore buys and sells rare, out-of-print, or unusual books in art, literature, design and typography, photography, NYC history, among many other topics, and seeks to make material history and culture accessible to a wider audience. She’s an adjunct professor at The Cooper Union, where she earned her BFA, and has been a guest critic at Pratt, Rutgers University, and Tyler School of Art. Previously she worked as a digital designer for The Wall Street Journal, and continues to maintain an independent design practice. Clients include Todd Oldham, Google, Penguin Random House, and Coqual.

Caroline Merrifield

Caroline Merrifield is a cultural anthropologist studying food provisioning, farming, and the environment in China. Her research addresses questions about living well with others, both strangers and kin, in contexts of social and ecological disruption. Her first book project, Troubled Plenty: Sourcing Good Food in China, explores the politics of taste and trust in China’s growing alternative food movement. 

Caroline received her PhD from Yale University in 2018, and her A.B. from Harvard College in Social Studies in 2010. She is based in New York, and has also taught at Yale and NYU.   

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After completing studies in economics at the University of Pittsburgh, Christian Rieser went on to study engineering at the Technical University of Munich and the Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussées in France where he earned master’s level engineering degrees at both universities.

His areas of focus include design, review, and supervision of cable-supported, steel, composite, and post-tensioned concrete bridges; dynamics of pedestrian bridges, floor systems, and monumental stairs; design of steel and timber shell structures; and structural glass and façade design.

Christian has contributed to research projects for the European Union and the Fédération International du Béton. He has served as a teaching assistant in Department of Structural Dynamics at the Technical University of Munich and has been a guest critic at Pratt Institute. He has co-authored and presented papers for the International Bridge Conference, International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures, Footbridge 2014, and International Conference on Small and Medium Span Bridges.

Christian has worked at renowned engineering consultancies in Europe and the US and has engineered, managed, and collaborated on landmark engineering structures around the world. He has collaborated with noted architects such as Behnisch Architekten, BIG, SANAA, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, SOM, and others.

Christian is a licensed professional and structural engineer in the US and Canada and serves as the Technical Director knippershelbig, leading the New York office.

Christian's CV is available here.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.