Speakers and Moderators

Dr. Tim Cresswell is Ogilvie Professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh. He is a cultural geographer by training, and the author or editor of a dozen books and over a 100 articleson the role of space, place and mobility in social and cultural life. He has PhDs in Geography (Wisconsin) and Creative Writing (Royal Holloway, University of London). Dr. Cresswell is also a widely published poet with three collections – most recently Plastiglomerate (Penned in the Margins, 2020). His most recent academic books include, Maxwell Street: Writing and Thinking Place, published in 2019 by the University of Chicago Press; Moving Towards Transition published by Zed Books (co-authored) in 2021; and Muybridge and Mobility published by University of California Press (co-authored) in 2022. His research focuses on place and mobility and their role in the constitution of social and cultural life.

Dr. Joyce Weil is an Associate Professor of Gerontology at Towson University. In addition to her body of peer-reviewed articles, and three other books, she is the author of Why Place Matters: Place and Place Attachment for Older Adults (2023) with Routledge. Dr. WeiI is trained in quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and emergent methodologies. She is associate editor for the Journal of Women & Aging and an editorial board member of the Gerontologist, Gerontology & Geriatrics Education and the Pedagogy in Health Promotion journals.  Dr. Weil is an active member of the Gerontological Society of America  as a co-leader of the Qualitative Research Interest Group, a GSA Mentor,  and she holds the Gerontological Society of America's fellow status, FGSA.

Dr. Sharon Zukin is a Professor Emerita of Sociology and of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research focuses on modern urban life and she has widely published on the values and challenges of place in urban life. Her new book, The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy (2020, OUP), examines the shaping of the tech ecosystem in New York. Dr. Zukin has been a Broeklundian Professor at Brooklyn College; a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Western Sydney, and Tongji University; and a distinguished fellow in the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center. She received the Lynd Award for Career Achievement in urban sociology from the American Sociological Association and won the C. Wright Mills Book Award for Landscapes of Power (1993, University of California Press).

Tony Hiss, beginning with his The Experience of Place: A new way of looking at, and dealing with our radically changing cities and countryside (1990, Knopf), has been presenting the urgent need for adding an experiential approach to a number of world-altering activities, including travel and transportation, in his In Motion: The Experience of Travel (2010, Knopf), and, most recently, protecting global biodiversity, in his award-winning Rescuing the Planet: Saving Half the Land to Heal the Earth (2021, Knopf). The National Recreation and Park Association’s National Literary Award praised his lifetime of “spellbinding and poignant” writing, calling it “often poetic, always real.” Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and author of twelve other books, Hiss was a staff writer at The New Yorker for more than thirty years, a visiting scholar at New York University for twenty-five years, and has lectured around the world. He lives in New York City with his wife, young-adult writer Lois Metzger.

Dr. David Brain is the founder and principal of Civic Design Strategies, and senior research associate with the Center for Housing and Community Regeneration at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. He was previously the Director of Urban Studies and Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at New College in Florida. Professor Brain’s research and teaching interests focus on the connections between place-making, community-building, and civic engagement, and on sociological issues related to the planning and design of good neighborhoods, humane cities, and sustainable development at the regional scale. In addition to research and theoretical writing on these topics, his work has led to practical involvements that include both independent consulting and neighborhood-oriented action research that engages students in collaboration with local community groups. He has been recognized internationally as an expert on contemporary efforts to transform the way cities are built, and as a frequent contributor to educational programs for citizens and professional practitioners. He is also a partner in High Cove, a village in the mountains of western North Carolina designed as an experiment in ecologically responsible development practices.

Dr. Tracy Hadden Loh is a Fellow with the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at Brookings Metro, where she integrates her interests in commercial real estate, infrastructure, racial justice, and governance. She serves on the boards of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, District Bridges, and Greater Greater Washington. Her most recent writing includes two co-authored chapters in Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World and a series on the future of downtowns, including what to do about public safety and adaptive reuse. Trained as a computer scientist, urbanist, and scholar, Dr. Loh has dedicated her career to creating new knowledge about how neighborhoods, cities, and regions work and putting those insights into practice through community organizing and government service. She has over a decade of experience in policy research and working directly with communities. She also previously served two years on the city council of Mount Rainier, a small town in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Dr. Emily Talen is a professor of Urbanism at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Sciences. Professor Talen's research is devoted to urban design and urbanism, especially the relationship between the built environment and social equity. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2014–15), and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Her books include New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures, Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods, Urban Design Reclaimed: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Planners, and City Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form. Her most recent book is Neighborhood (Oxford University Press). She is also the editor of several volumes, including Retrofitting Sprawl: Addressing 70 Years of Failed Urban Form and Streetlife: Urban Retail Dynamics and Prospects.

Marc Norman is the founder of the consulting firm “Ideas and Action” and Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair and Associate Dean at New York University, Schack Institute of Real Estate. Previously he was Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the Faculty Director of the Weiser Center for Real Estate at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business.

Marc Norman is an internationally recognized expert on policy and finance for affordable housing and community development. Trained as an urban planner, he has worked in the field of community development and finance for over 25 years. With degrees in political economics (University of California Berkeley, Bachelors of Art, 1989) and urban planning (University of California Los Angeles, Master of Art, 1992) and experience with for-profit and non-profit organizations, consulting firms and investment banks, Norman has worked collaboratively to develop or finance more than $400 million in total development costs.

Rosanne Haggerty is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Community Solutions. She is an internationally recognized leader in developing innovative strategies to end homelessness and strengthen communities. Community Solutions assists communities throughout the U.S and internationally in building housing systems that make homelessness rare and brief. Their large-scale change initiatives include the 100,000 Homes and Built for Zero Campaigns to Earlier, she founded Common Ground Community, a pioneer in the design and development of supportive housing and research-based practices that end homelessness. Haggerty is the recipient of numerous recognitions and awards for her work, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Award, and she was a 1997 Rudy Bruner Award Gold Medalist for The Times Square, a supportive housing facility in New York City.

Ethan Kent is the Executive Director of PlacemakingX. Ethan Kent works to support public space organizations, projects, and leadership around the world to build a global placemaking movement. Ethan has traveled to more than 1000 cities, in 60 countries, to advance the cause of leading urban development with inclusive public spaces and placemaking. In 2019 he co-founded PlacemakingX to network, amplify and accelerate placemaking leadership and impact globally. Ethan has helped initiate and grow over two dozen regional placemaking networks covering much of the globe, while also supporting the PlacemakingUS network, and the Social Life Project. He builds on more than 20 years of working on placemaking projects and campaigns with Project for Public Spaces. Ethan has been integral to the development of placemaking as a transformative approach to economic development, environmentalism, transportation planning, governance, resilience, social equity, design, placekeeping, digital space, inclusion, tourism and innovation. Ethan has keynoted well over 100 top urbanism conferences and helped organize dozens of the placemaking conferences that have most shaped the movement.

Dr. Jesus J. Lara is a Professor in the Urban and Regional Planning program at Michigan State University.  His research and pedagogy are centered on sustainable urban design, Latino Urbanism, community development, and on the sociocultural factors which influence planning and design. He is both co-editor and principal contributor in Remaking Metropolis: Global Challenges of the Urban Landscape (Routledge, 2013). He is also the guest editor and contributor of a special issue of Journal of Urbanism entitled, “International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability in 21st Century American Cities.” Prof. Lara is also the lead curator and contributor with respect to the extensive literature review on Latino Urbanism found in the Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Urbanism. He is further the sole author of Latino Placemaking and Planning: Cultural Resiliency and Strategies for Re-urbanization (University of Arizona Press, 2018), a work which examines the application of the principles of Latino Urbanism in the revitalization of American cities.

Dan Pitera, FAIA, is dean of the Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development. He is a political and social activist masquerading as an architect. Pitera was a 2004-2005 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2010. Before his dean appointment in 2019, he was the executive director for 20 years at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC). Under his direction, the DCDC won the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, received the National AIA’s 2017 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, and was included in the 2017 Curry Stone Design Award’s Social Design Circle. Pitera co-led the civic engagement process for the Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning in 2010. DCDC’s engagement process was included in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum’s exhibition: By The People and the DCDC’s Roaming Table has been added to the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection. Pitera has co-authored the book, Syncopating the Urban Landscape: More People, More Programs, More Geographies and co-edited the book, Activist Architecture: The Philosophy and Practice of the Community Design Center.

Rowena Alegría is Denver’s Chief Storyteller, founder and director of the city’s first Office of Storytelling, which preserves and shares the history and culture of the city primarily by creating films in the voices of residents. Through story, the office strives to inform decision-making at City Hall and to uplift community voices for conversation and engagement, particularly around issues of social justice. Launched in 2019 as a strategic race and social justice effort to improve outreach and engagement, DOST has created nine documentary films and about a hundred short films. With dozens of community partners, the films have been shared and discussed more than 50 times across the state, serving over 500,000 residents in the office’s first five years. The work has been honored with 5 official film festival selections, 6 Heartland Emmy nominations and 18 awards for outstanding work, including History Colorado’s Josephine H. Miles Award for a major contribution to the advancement of Colorado history and the XicanIndie Film Festival’s Premio Omacatl Cultural Heritage Award. A filmmaker, career journalist, communications executive and speech writer, Alegría has also won numerous writing fellowships and residencies and is writing a novel that plays with form and the history of the Southwest.

Dr. Victoria Derr is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the California State University in Monterey Bay. Her teaching and research focuses on the intersections between sustainable communities, place-conscious environmental education, and social justice, particularly in historically excluded communities. She is interested in children and youth participation in school and community settings as a means to foster sense of place, health, sustainability, and climate resilience. ​For more than 30 years, Dr. Derr has engaged children, youth and communities in participatory research and projects in both rural and urban settings, including with Indigenous communities of the Southwest, Spanish land grant communities, and newcome (recent immigrant) communities. From 2012-2016, Dr. Derr was a faculty coordinator for Growing Up Boulder at the University of Colorado, where she facilitated children and youth participation in design and planning of child-friendly cities, including parks, open space, transportation, resiliency, and neighborhood projects.  This work led to the publication Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities. 

Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP, is the Executive Director of the Northern New Jersey Community Foundation. He has been helping enhance communities for more than 30 years as an author, community economic development professional, creative placemaker, educator, journalist, and urban planner. He founded and directed two organizations that helped grow the field of creative placemaking around the United States through innovative convenings and professional development programs: The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking and Creative Placemaking Communities. Both organizations engage people from the worlds of arts, cultural heritage, public policy, and more to explore ways to leverage the power of arts and culture to enhance communities. Vazquez has been recognized nationally and in New Jersey for his work in urban planning, creative placemaking, and social justice. He is the co-editor of “Diálogos: Placemaking in Latino Communities”, and author of Leading from the Middle: Strategic Thinking for Urban Planning and Community Development Professionals. He is a co-founder of the Latinos and Planning division of the American Planning Association (APA) and is an advisor to the APA’s Arts and Planning Division.

Robert Shibley, FAIA, FAICP is Dean Emeritus of the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning and the Director of the Rudy Bruner Center for Urban Excellence. During his term as Dean from 2011 and 2023, Shibley guided the school to a top position in research generation among the nation’s schools of architecture and planning. As a teacher, scholar, and practitioner of architecture and planning for more than 50 years, Robert (Bob) Shibley has dedicated his career to advancing knowledge-based design and placemaking in service to the public. In recognition of his lifetime contributions to design excellence for the public, the American Institute of Architects presented Shibley with the prestigious 2014 Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture. Shibley has authored or co-authored 17 books - notably including Placemaking: The Art and Science of Building Community; Urban Excellence; and Time Savers Standards for Urban Design - and more than 120 book chapters, government publications, and articles in the professional and academic press. He is co-creator of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, created in 1986 to honor great places. Over the course of over four decades, Shibley has worked with faculty, staff, students, and collaborating publics on over 80 Buffalo-based projects, earning several APA Best Practice and the Best Plan Awards, as well as a CNU Charter Award.  His work is viewed as a model for university-community partnerships in city-making and place-based teaching, research, and critical practice.