Resiliency & Sustainability

Professor Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education. She teaches courses in planning history, global urbanization and serves as chair, Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning, co-director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor, City in the 21st Century Series, University of Penn Press, and co-editor, SSRN Urban Research e-journal.

Professor Birch has been active in the field's professional organizations and in academia in the United States and abroad. She is a member of the U.S. National Committee for Habitat, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group on Resilient Cities, and an Associate Editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. In the past, she has been President, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning; President, Society of American City and Regional Planning History; President, International Planning History Society; and co-editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. She has been a member of the Planning Accreditation Board, having served as its chair from 2004-2006. She has been a member of the editorial boards of Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of Planning History, Journal of Planning Education and Research and Planning Perspectives. In 2000, she was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners and made a member (honorary) of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Professor Birch has been Visiting Scholar, Queens University, Foreign Scholar, University of Hong Kong and Visiting Professor, University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She lectures widely. In Fall 2012, she delivered the Burnham Lecture, National Building Museum, Washington DC.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning has given her its three awards: the Distinguished Educator Award in recognition of her teaching and research (2009), the Jay Chatterjee Award for Distinguished Service that "recognizes an individual whose exceptional service, actions and leadership have had a lasting and positive impact on the ACSP"(2006) and the Margarita McCoy Award, "in recognition of her outstanding contribution to furthering the advancement of women in the planning academy" (1994). The Society of American City and Regional Planning History awarded her its Lawrence C. Gerckens Prize (2009) in recognition of her contributions to planning history.

The American Planning Association honored her with their APA President's Award in 2013. This award is given out every other year in recognition of leadership in the field of planning.

Professor Birch's civic commitments encompass leadership positions locally and globally. Currently, she is Chair, UN-HABITAT's World Urban Campaign (WUC) and President, General Assembly of Partners, the civil society platform to facilitate contributions to Habitat III. In the early 1990s, she was a member of the New York City Planning Commission, and in 2002, she served on the jury to select the designers for the World Trade Center site.

James founded JLP+D in 2011 after leading redevelopment strategies for various sites as a partner at HR&A Advisors. Previously, he was Senior Director of Development in the New York office of residential REIT AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Additionally, James was appointed as founding President of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation. Lima also served as Senior Vice President for Special Projects at the NYC Economic Development Corporation. He also worked as Assistant Commissioner at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development and at Forest City Ratner Companies.
James earned a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and stayed on at Columbia to complete the MSRED Program.

James serves on the Economic Development Committee of the Fourth Regional Plan for the Regional Plan Association in New York. He is a member of the Design Trust for Public Space’s Design Trust Council, and is on the Advisory Council to public art innovator ArtBridge. He also serves as Secretary of the New York Harbor Foundation.

Guy Nordenson is a professor of structural engineering and architecture at Princeton University and a faculty associate of the University Center for Human Values. He was the structural engineer for the Museum of Modern Art expansion in New York, the Jubilee Church in Rome, the Simmons Residence Hall at MIT in Massachusetts, the Disneyland Parking Structure in California, the Santa Fe Opera House, and over 100 other projects. Nordenson was the first recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Architecture for contributions to architecture by a non-architect in 2003. He has served as Commissioner and Secretary of the New York City Public Design Commission since 2006. His project “On the Water—the NY/NJ Upper Bay” won the 2007 AIA College of Fellows Latrobe Research Prize. Nordenson was a recipient of the AIA’s 2009 Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement Award, and is the seventh structural engineer to receive this award.

Walcavage has been involved in the planning and design of landscapes and public spaces in the New York City area for decades. With specific focus on dense urban areas, she specializes in streetscapes, urban waterfront redevelopment, bikeway and pedestrian facilities as well as public parks and greenways. Walcavage has worked with New York City and New York State agencies on various projects, including design of a new plaza at Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, the Stuyvesant Cove waterfront in Manhattan, and the conversion of two lanes of traffic and unused median into a linear park and bikeway for the Lower East Side.

Marilyn Jordan Taylor is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design. She had a distinguished tenure as Dean of the School of Design from 2008 - 2016, having been a much admired practitioner. She is recognized worldwide as a thought leader in urban design, as well as a woman pioneer in the fields of architecture, planning, and construction. Her global stature is complemented by her down-to-earth demeanor and proven ability to interact easily with constituencies across communities, government, industry, and academia, both locally and internationally. She is a leader who exudes not only intellectual breadth, but also deep enthusiasm and compassion in her dedication to enhancing the vitality of urban communities through design.

Marilyn Taylor was Partner in Charge of the Urban Design and Planning Practice at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP and the first woman to serve as Chairman of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, is internationally known for her distinguished and passionate involvement in the design of large-scale urban projects and civic initiatives. Over a 35-year career with Skidmore Owings & Merrill, she led many of the firm's largest and most complex projects around the world. She was also both the first architect and the first woman to serve as chairman (2005-07) of the Urban Land Institute, a non-profit research and educational institution, where she championed a renewed focus on cities, sustainable communities, and infrastructure investment.

An expert in using public space and infrastructure to shape urban districts and civic places, Marilyn Taylor led Skidmore Owings & Merrill's Urban Design & Planning practice in such projects as Columbia University's Manhattanville Master Plan, the East River Waterfront Master Plan, the reclamation of Con Ed's East River sites for mixed-use development, the new research building at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and the new urban campus for John Jay College. She also founded and led Skidmore Owings & Merrill's Airports and Transportation practice, working on U.S. airport projects such as Terminal 4 at JFK, Continental Airlines at Newark, and the expansion of Washington, DC's Dulles International Airport. Her international airport projects included SkyCity at Hong Kong International Airport and the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, as well as the new Terminal 3 at Singapore's Changi Airport.

Her transit work has been equally diverse, ranging from the award-winning Changi Airport Station in Singapore to the Transit-Friendly Land Use Handbook for New Jersey Transit. Her train projects include all 15 intercity rail stations from Washington, DC to Boston. She also led Skidmore Owings & Merrill's planning and transportation design for reuse of New York's Farley Post Office as the Moynihan Station. Taylor is distinguished as well for her civic and professional leadership, having served as a member of The Partnership for New York City, president of the American Institute of Architects (NYC Chapter), visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and as one of the founding members of the New York New Visions Design and Planning Coalition, the design, planning, and real estate communities' unprecedented response to the events of 9/11. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. Taylor is an Iowa native and a 1969 graduate of Radcliffe College.

She attended the MIT Graduate School of Architecture (1969-70), and received her M. Arch in 1974 from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined Skidmore Owings & Merrill in 1971, in the firm's Washington office, and was elected Partner in 1985. She received a prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship from the Partnership for New York City in 1995.

Blake Middleton FAIA, LEED AP is a Partner with Handel Architects. He is Executive Architect for the Battery Conservancy's project for the New Amsterdam Plein/Pavilion. Mr. Middleton's work has won distinction with National and State AIA Awards for Inventure Place in Akron; a NY State AIA Citation for the Santa Fe Opera; numerous local and national design awards for the Flushing Natatorium & Ice Rink, the Ritz Carlton Residences in Boston, and a New York City AIA Chapter Award for Sulzberger Hall at Barnard College. Mr. Middleton holds his Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Cornell University. He is a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a member of the U.S. Institute of Theater Technology, the Urban Land Institute, the Boston Society of Architects, the Van Alen Institute, The Society of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome, and the Architectural League of New York.

Susannah C. Drake is the founding principal, of DLANDstudio Architecture + Landscape Architecture, pllc. an award winning multi-disciplinary design firm. DLANDstudio is the recipient of National and International urban design awards from the AIA, ASLA and Chicago Athenaeum among others. As one of very few designers of her generation with professional design qualifications in Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Susannah paved the way for more synthetic thinking about urban ecological infrastructure.
She is the recipient of grants from the Graham Foundation, the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, the James Marston Fitch Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Center for Architecture for research on campus landscapes and large scale urban infrastructure projects. Susannah is the former President and Trustee of the New York ASLA and former Trustee of the Van Alen Institute. She is the author of Elastic Landscape: Seeding Ecology in Public Space & Urban Infrastructure which was recently published in the collection of essays entitled Infrastruktururbanismus.

Susannah received a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree from Dartmouth College in 1987 and Master in Architecture and Master in Landscape Architecture degrees from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1995.

Catherine Seavitt is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at CUNY’s City College of New York and principal of Catherine Seavitt Studio. Her research focuses on design adaptation to sea level rise in urban coastal environments and explores novel landscape restoration practices given the dynamics of climate change. Seavitt co-authored the book On the Water: Palisade Bay, a climate adaptation proposal for the New York / New Jersey Upper Harbor; this study, examining the use of “soft” infrastructural systems to mitigate the impacts of storm surge and flooding, was the foundation of the 2010 exhibition Rising Currents at the Museum of Modern Art.

Kai-Uwe Bergmann is a Partner at BIG who brings his expertise to proposals around the globe, including work in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Kai-Uwe heads up BIG’s business development which currently has the office working in 17 different countries as well as overseeing BIG’s Communications. Registered as an architect in the USA (six states), UK, and Canada (one province), Kai-Uwe most recently contributed to the resiliency plan BIG U to protect 10 miles of Manhattan’s coastline. He compliments his professional work through previous teaching assignments at IE University in Madrid, the New School of Architecture in San Diego and his alma mater the University of Virginia. Kai-Uwe also sits on the Board of the Van Alen Institute, participates on numerous international juries and lectures globally on the works of BIG.

William Kenworthey, AIA, has been responsible for leading large-scale waterfront, public realm, and campus design projects throughout his seventeen years in the field. He joined Cooper Robertson in 2004, joined the partnership in 2011, and is a member of the firm’s management committee.
In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Bill drew on his waterfront expertise to lead the firm’s work focused on long-term resiliency design for coastal communities: The Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (New York City Mayor’s Office), New York Rising (New York State), and Rebuild by Design (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development). He is currently serving as an advising expert for the Rockefeller Foundation’s National Resiliency Academies and 100 Resilient Cities program.
Prior to joining Cooper Robertson, Bill worked on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Re-Zoning and Waterfront Access Plan as an associate urban designer at the New York City Department of City Planning. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University. He is a registered architect in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Justin Garrett Moore is an urban designer and the executive director of the New York City Public Design Commission. He has extensive experience in urban design and city planning—from large-scale urban systems, policies, and projects to grassroots and community-focused planning, design, and arts initiatives. At the Public Design Commission his work is focused on prioritizing the quality and excellence of the public realm, and fostering accessibility, diversity and inclusion in the City’s public buildings, spaces, and art.

Justin is a former Senior Urban Designer for the NYC Department of City Planning where, for over a decade, he was responsible for conducting complex urban design plans and studies of the physical design and utilization of sites including infrastructure, public spaces, land use patterns and neighborhood character. His projects included the Greenpoint and Williamsburg Waterfront, Hunter’s Point South, the Coney Island Plan and the Brooklyn Cultural District. He received degrees in both architecture and urban design from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation where he is now an Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture in the urban design and urban planning programs.

He is the co-founder of Urban Patch, a social enterprise based in Indianapolis that focuses on community revitalization and design in American inner cities. His professional affiliations include the American Institute of Certified Planners, the Urban Design Forum, and Next City’s Vanguard. In addition to ioby, he also serves as a board member for Mary Miss—City as Living Laboratory, and Made in Brownsville.

Michael Sorkin is the Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio in New York City, a design practice devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales, with special interest in sustainable urban environments/green city architecture. He is also Distinguished Professor of Architecture and Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York.

He has been professor at numerous schools of architecture including the Architectural Association, the Aarhus School of Architecture, Cooper Union, Carleton, Columbia, Yale, Cornell etc. Dedicated to urbanism as both an artistic practice and a medium for social amelioration, Sorkin has conducted studios in such stressed environments as Jerusalem, Nicosia, Johannesburg, Havana, Cairo, Kumasi, Hanoi, Nueva Loja (Ecuador) and Wuhan (China). In 2005 -2006, he directed studio projects for the post-Katrina reconstruction of Biloxi and New Orleans at both CCNY and the University of Michigan.

As a global thought leader for urban infrastructure planning, sustainability, and resilience, Byron has a passion for understanding technical aspects of how cities function and the impact infrastructure can have on everyday lives. He studies and practices innovative methods of delivering energy and climate change planning, water and wastewater management, transportation planning, and solid waste management through an integrated design process. As Founding Director, Byron created LEVEL to serve as a unique consulting firm that provides highly specialized technical and planning advice for development projects with grand aspirations to address climate change, resilience, economic justice, and environmental protection in cities around the world. Based out of LEVEL’s New York City headquarters, Byron sits on the Board of Directors for the Urban Design Forum. He also travels frequently as a lecturer, panelist, and jurist for design competitions around the world. Byron holds an M.Des degree in Environmental Planning from Harvard Graduate School of Design, an M.S. in Building Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering and Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis.

Kenneth A. Lewis is a Partner in SOM’s New York office. He joined the firm in 1986 and has worked on a diverse range of projects including mixed-use developments, commercial and residential towers, corporate headquarters, and healthcare facilities.

Lewis began his career at SOM as a designer, serving as senior designer on numerous projects such as Time Warner Center and 2525 West End Avenue in New York City; UBS Warburg Center in Stamford, Connecticut; Check Point Charlie Block 105 in Berlin, Germany; and the Rio Office Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He went on to distinguish himself as a talented project manager, helping to facilitate the design process for some of SOM’s most innovative projects. With a special focus on New York, Lewis has managed and brought to successful completion several projects of enormous scale, complexity, and visibility, including the award-winning Time Warner Center, 7 World Trade Center, and One World Trade Center. Current high-profile projects include 250 West 55th Street and Brookfield Office Properties' Manhattan West Development.

Many of Lewis's projects have achieved, or are slated to achieve, Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council LEED® CS rating system. Lewis was also closely involved in the development of the sustainability design guidelines for the World Trade Center. Moreover, Lewis is a principal of the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE), a research collaboration between SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. With a focus on developing new sustainable materials and technologies, CASE blends private sector practicality, academic exploration, and scientific rigor to seek emergent technologies and develop them for practical applications in buildings.

Lewis is active in the public realm, and his projects have been honored with numerous design awards. He is an adjunct faculty member at Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. His studios focus on mixed-use projects, the public realm, and resiliency.

Mary Elizabeth Rusz, AIA is a Senior Architect and Urban Designer with the Office of Design, of the New York City Housing Authority. She has been the design lead for a number of large scale, urban revitalization projects under both the HUD Choice Neighborhood Initiative and the prior HOPE VI Program. She is currently the Project Manager for the Historic Preservation Study of the NYC Housing Authority's entire development portfolio, in support of a Programmatic Agreement with the NY State Historic Preservation Office.

Ms. Rusz is a graduate of Columbia University, GSAPP [M.S.A.U.D.], and the University of Toronto, Faculty of Architecture [B.Arch.], including study abroad at Paris’ Unité Pedagogiques d’Architecture Six.

Ms. Rusz is a long standing member of the American Institute of Architecture - New York Chapter’s Housing Committee, and the City Club of New York’s Urban Design Committee. She is also an avid Watercolorist [See website: "Watercolor Works"], and an active Member of both the National Association of Women Artists, and The Salmagundi Club of New York.

In 2015, Ms. Rusz founded TORONTO - NEW YORK, a new platform by which designers of these two great cities may share innovations and best practices with the common goal of enhancing the built environment [akin to the UDF's NEW YORK - LONDON exchange]. The first exchange, on the topic of HOUSING, was held at the AIA NY Chapter, in Taffel Hall, on September 26, 2016. It is hoped that TORONTO - NEW YORK will become a more integrated activity in future with the UDF.

In 2017, Ms. Rusz will embark on an abbreviated "Grand Tour" as a travel / study program through Italy, to document seminal works of Architecture and Urbanism, in order to prepare a "primer for young designers". This document will be focused on High School Students who may be considering studying the design professions in College / University; the content and format of this primer will be developed in conjunction with the AIA NY Chapter's Center for Architecture.

Mr. Rui Qian holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard GSD, and a Master of Urban Design degree from TCAUP, University of Michigan. Mr. Qian was recently nominated as the International Research Associate of National Research Center of Rural Planning and Development of China. Along with that, he has been serving as the VP of UM Beijing Alumni Association, in charge of bridging Sino-US institutions. He has worked as an urban designer with Cooper Robertson and Partners, Goody Clancy and Associates and China Sustainability Center of AECOM Beijing Office. He also serves as the overseas editor for several professional magazines in China.

Eugenia manages urban design projects at WXY, with experience from zoning studies, coastal climate resilience, neighborhood planning, and public engagement and outreach. Her work focuses on seamlessly integrating city planning and place-making techniques with great urban design and architecture.

Before joining WXY, Eugenia worked as a Senior Urban Designer at the New York City Department of City Planning. At City Planning her work focused on climate resilience as it relates to neighborhood planning, exploring the impact of land use policy on the resilience of coastal communities and their adaptation to climate risks. Eugenia has also led a number ground-up community planning initiatives to identify short and long-term opportunities for neighborhood revitalization through transit-oriented development.

Lucrecia's work promotes the revitalization of post-industrial municipalities through resiliency and climate adaptation strategies for the region’s most vulnerable communities. She has worked on projects at the Department of City Planning and as a designer at Arquitectura 911sc in Mexico City. She earned a M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia GSAPP and a Masters in city design and social science from LSE. She holds B.Arch from Instituto Tecnólogico y de Estudios Superiores.

Sanjukta is a landscape and architectural designer at James Corner Field Operations. She holds a B.Arch from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Her projects include the Domino Sugar Waterfront & Greenpoint Landing in Brooklyn, NY; The Underline, Miami, FL and the Central Green at Philadelphia Navy Yards. Sanjukta has also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jeremy is a Designer and Project Leader at BIG - Bjarke Ingles Group. He directed the BIG team in its winning proposal for the Rebuild by Design competition, and now leads urban design of the subsequent East Side and Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Projects for the City of New York. He has been working with Bjarke Ingels and BIG since the establishment of its New York office in 2010.

Marc Ricks is the Senior Vice President for Vornado Realty Trust, where he is working to transform the area around Manhattan's Penn Station. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chief Operating Officer for the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR), where he helped develop a plan to make New York City more resilient to coastal storms and other climate change impacts. In addition, he has held leadership roles with Bloomberg LP and Goldman Sachs. He currently serves as Chairman of the Friends of Governors Island and on the boards of the Javits Center and Regional Plan Association. He is an alumnus of Princeton University and Harvard Business School.

Carlos Arnaiz is an architect, educator, writer and urban design consultant. He is the founder and principal of CAZA, the co-founder of SURBA and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Pratt Institute where he teaches a class on the history of ideas about the city and a studio on multi-family housing. His professional experience ranges from the design and construction of large-scale mixed-used complexes to the development of strategic sustainability plans for new cities around the world. Carlos holds a Master’s Degree, with Honors, from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor’s Degree, Magna Cum Laude, from Williams College.

Carlos’ work has been recognized with prestigious awards such as two consecutive Progressive Architecture awards in 2008 and 2009 and the AIANY building merit award in 2008. His work and writings have been published in ARCHITECT Magazine, Metropolis, Kerb, Dialogue, and 50UNDER50. His work has also been selected as Finalist for ArchDaily’s Best Buildings of the Year, as well as Finalist for Architizer A+ Awards. He has participated in numerous international design competitions including the winning entry for the High Line competition in New York.

Prior to founding CAZA, Carlos was associate partner at SAA in charge of over 20 global projects. Carlos started his career working as a design associate at a number of world-renown architecture firms such as Office dA and Field Operations.

Landscape architect Michelle Delk is a partner in the multi-disciplinary firm Snøhetta, and Director of Landscape Architecture for the firm. The design process at Snøhetta is collaborative, transdisciplinary, and focused on social and environmental sustainability. The firm prioritizes relationships and recognition of the particularities of place. This is achieved through workshops, conversations, and open exchange, where ideas move freely between designer, client, and consultant. Public participation and community engagement is a core value in Delk’s work. She is committed to expanding the public understanding of the role of landscape architecture in building resilient communities.

Delk has led the design of numerous downtown plazas, parks, streetscape revitalizations, and public spaces. As Director of Landscape Architecture, she is currently heading the landscape design for Snøhetta's Willamette Falls Riverwalk project in Oregon City. The project will open the Willamette Falls to public access for the first time since the 1830s. Delk is also the lead designer for the new Calgary Public Library plaza, the North Tryon Vision Plan for Charlotte, Virginia, and the Temple University Library in Philadelphia. She received an MLA degree from the University of Colorado Denver (2001) and a BA in fine art from the University of Iowa (1997). Before joining Snohetta, Delk was a Principal/Landscape Architect for the Denver-based landscape architecture firm Civitas.

As a practice area leader for Gensler’s North-East region, Oliver is responsible for overseeing planning and urban design projects, architectural designs and commercial as well as institutional projects ranging from a small environmental not-for-profit to large scale master plans in the U.S. and the Middle East.

His clients include The New York Times, Novartis, McGraw-Hill, Morgan Stanley, Qatar Airways, the Dogus Group, Bilgili Holding, Global Seawater Inc., and The Beacon Institute.

His work includes assignments as diverse as facilitating the planning and implementation of high performance energy and water strategies for a corporate headquarters project in Houston, TX, planning advisory for a 50,000-hectare seawater irrigated bio-fuel agricultural project, the development of innovative net-zero energy housing projects in the US, Germany and Switzerland, advisory for several net-zero energy projects and the design for the Beacon Institute’s Center for Environmental Innovation and Education (CEIE) at Dennings Point in Beacon, NY.

In February 2010 Oliver was selected to participate in the LEED ND Pilot Program and became one of the first LEED Accredited Professionals for Neighborhood Development in addition to being LEED AP for Building Design and Construction for over 14 years.

An outstanding academic and professional leader, Oliver regularly speaks about and teaches courses on sustainability topics at universities such as the Cooper Union, Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and the New York School of Interior Design. He has been a moderator and panelist on numerous industry events on sustainable design.

Oliver is a Member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the NYC Mayor’s Carbon Challenge for Commercial Tenants and a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of INDICATE, an EU sponsored Smart City Initiative to create cloud-based Urban Energy Planning and Assessment Tools.

Elliott believes that art and design can improve the sustainability and vitality of the urban environment; she is particularly interested in how an ecological framework can support both architectural and landscape thinking. Working in academic settings and within a collaborative design firm, she is actively engaged in the dialogue of theory and practice. In addition to her work in landscape architecture, she has worked as an architectural designer over the last ten years, and brings a commitment to careful detailing and expressive materiality. Her work has appeared in number of magazines, among others, Art in America, LandForum, and ArchRecord. For 5 years Elliott worked with Mary Miss, one of the most influential public artists working today.

Ms. Nandan believes in sustainability as a holistic and supple design approach, integral to all aspect of design and construction. She is at the forefront of sustainability in New York, having served in various roles to help shape public policy, most recently board co-chair of the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program Red Hook Community Committee ; member of the Homes Committee for Urban Green Codes Task Force (2012); and the Building Resiliency Task Force (2013). Gita further puts her beliefs into practice as an architectural educator, currently a visiting assistant professor at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts where she teaches the Green Infrastructure Studio, Sustainable and Resilient Existing Building Design and thesis. Gita received her Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley and is a registered architect in New York and New Jersey, an accredited LEED professional and Enterprise Green Communities Technical Assistant.

Matthew is an interdisciplinary designer at Snøhetta, he currently manages and leads the design of the Willamette Falls Riverwalk, a transformative 22-acre post-industrial riverfront project with significant goals related to habitat restoration, re-development, historic interpretation, and public access. Matthew received his Masters of Architecture at Princeton University and bachelor degrees in biology and landscape architecture from The Pennsylvania State University.

Rohit T. “Rit” Aggarwala is Co-Head of Labs at Sidewalk Labs. Previously, he headed the sustainability practice at Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consulting firm that serves city governments. He is also an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and co-chairs the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York metropolitan area.

Rit served as Special Advisor to the Chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group from 2010-2013, guiding the organization’s strategic transformation into a global leader. During that period, he also developed the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, which grew to a total of $145 million in grants under his management.

Rit served as Director of New York City’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability from 2006-2010, and led the creation and implementation of “PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York.” PlaNYC has been hailed as one of the world’s best urban sustainability plans, leading New York City to a 19% reduction in its carbon footprint since 2005. Prior to joining City Hall, he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.