Elisabeth is an architect based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and is passionate about using design and working with communities to improve people's livelihoods and bring meaning to spaces. She returned to Waterloo for her masters in 2013 and completed a thesis that proposed the design for a mapping framework for the community of Beni, DRC in partnership with a local university. The collaboration led to involvement in Sharing the Land (STL), a center within the research institute that is working with several local and international partners in the design and progressive implementation of a framework to improve and bring transparency to land administration in the DRC. Elisabeth returned on two more occasions to consult and conduct trainings for this evolving work.
Following her masters Elisabeth worked for Philip Beesley Architect and Rolf Seifert Architect on many architectural projects including the 2 Fraser Bread Factory in Liberty Village. She also became a part-time research fellow in 2017 and 2018 for Engineering for Change (E4C), an online platform and international community of engineers and practitioners seeking to solve global development problems. After becoming a licensed architect in 2018 Elisabeth headed back to Africa and is now settled in Kinshasa, DRC with her husband and nine-month-old son. She currently does part-time remote freelance work for Areacode Architects in Toronto and is partnering with her husband to launch a few businesses in the DRC including a waste collection business for Kinshasa called Lokota, a wood and steel fabrication shop, and a design-build practice.
