Meet the 2011 Point Scholars

Kian Goh
- from Penang, Malaysia
- pursuing a PhD in urban studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How do you feel your Point Scholarship will change or help your future?
The Point Scholarship will enable me to pursue my PhD at MIT without undertaking significant financial hardship, and fulfill my objective to garner expertise in the fields of architecture, politics, and urban ecologies. I look forward to Point’s mentorship and leadership programs to help me confront and embrace challenges and opportunities as a scholar, to enable me to develop my own mentorship skills, and hone my abilities as a leader in the LGBT community.

In conjunction with Point, how do you wish to make difference in the LGBT community?
As an architect and activist I use my expertise in sustainable “green” design and social justice to bring forward-thinking design to those who need it most, communities that generally don’t have access to such expertise. Now I want to take this further – beyond individual buildings – to bring this engagement of social justice and design of spaces to the scale of the city and globally. My doctoral research will focus on relationships between institutional systems and social movements, including queer movements, and their impact on built and natural urban environments. My goal is to explore how such movements can be a critical part of future sustainable cities.