Armando Carbonell, FAICP, FAcSS, Hon MRTPI
Senior Fellow and Chair, Department of Planning and Urban Form, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Armando Carbonell has led the urban planning program at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1999. After attending Clark University and the Johns Hopkins University, Carbonell spent the early part of his career as an academic geographer.
Carbonell went on to initiate a new planning system for Cape Cod, Massachusetts as the founding executive director of the Cape Cod Commission, created by the Massachusetts legislature in 1990. In 1992 he received a Loeb fellowship in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Carbonell later taught urban planning at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, served as an editor of the British journal Town Planning Review, and consulted on master plans in Houston, Texas and Fujian Province, China. The Massachusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association awarded him the distinguished leadership/service award for professional planner for “Distinguished practice, teaching, and writing” in 1999.
From 2011 to 2013 he was honorary professor at the University of Manchester, England. He is the author or editor of numerous works on city and regional planning and planning for climate change, including Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect (2011) with Ethan Seltzer, ed.; Resilient Coastal City Regions: Planning for Climate Change in the United States and Australia (2012) with Ed Blakely, ed.; Planning for States and Nation-States in the U.S. and Europe (2015) with Gerrit-Jan Knaap and Zorica Nedovic-Budic, eds.; and Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning (2016) with Frederick Steiner and George Thompson, eds. Carbonell is a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and lifetime honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (UK).
Mark Dawson, FASLA
Managing Principal, Sasaki Associates Inc.
Mark Dawson is a landscape architect and principal with Sasaki Associates and member of the Sasaki Associates executive committee. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the firm and landscape practice. Dawson’s specialty is planning and designing award-winning urban landscapes.
Dawson views the cities in which he lives and works as vital and dynamic ecosystems. By considering and synthesizing the complexities of social, economic, environmental, and cultural influences, he creates coherent, enduring, sustainable civic designs. As a part of his work, Dawson speaks to communities about the importance of public open space infrastructure, and how their voice in the process ensures social dialog and contribution, environmental stewardship, and has lasting positive contribution to economic wellness and revitalization of urban centers.
Dawson holds a bachelor’s of landscape architecture from Utah State University and is a fellow of American Society of Landscape Architects. He actively serves such nonprofits as The Waterfront Center, and is past president of the Landscape Architecture Foundation. In the past he has participated as a board member for the Watertown Boys & Girls Club as well as the Utah State University College of Humanities and Social Sciences academic advisory council. Dawson was awarded the distinguished alumni award from the department of landscape architecture and environmental planning at Utah State University, and has lectured widely on lasting and resilient planning and design at colleges and universities throughout the country.
Tim Duggan, ASLA, RLA
Founder, Phronesis
In 2010 Tim Duggan, ASLA, founded Phronesis, with offices in Kansas City and New Orleans, as a nimble landscape architecture and urban design studio focused almost entirely on creating regenerative infrastructure and community systems within the public realm.
Duggan’s landscape architecture career began in the midwest, where he collaborated on a wide range of project from post-disaster community planning initiatives to complex green infrastructure urban design strategies.
Most recently, Duggan developed over 200 LEED Platinum landscapes with his role as director of innovations for the Make It Right Foundation. He managed the foundation’s transformative community projects based in New Orleans, Kansas City, Newark and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation while working extensively with local community organizations and individuals.
Duggan was named one of Metropolis magazine’s 2012 Game Changers for his ambitious experiments in landscape design. He has served as a speaker and guest critic on sustainable site solutions at TEDxHarlem, Dwell on Design 2014, AIA 2011 National Conference, 2012 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO, GreenBuild 2009, National Black Caucus 2010, WEFTEC 2010, Reinvention New Orleans 2010, and has served as an adjunct professor and guest critic for Tulane University, Kansas State University, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Ying-yu Hung, ASLA
Managing Principal, SWA's Los Angeles Studio
Ying-yu Hung, ASLA, is the managing principal of SWA’s Los Angeles Studio. Throughout her practice, Hung has pushed the boundaries of her design with tenacity and creativity, willing to engage the practice of landscape architecture with new boundaries. Most recently she contributed to the SWA Resilient Cities initiative, an action-oriented approach to generate insights on what urban resiliency means for Miami. Various agencies representing regulatory oversight of Miami’s urban network were represented at the charrette, including the state, city, and Miami-Dade County levels, as well as nonprofit organizations such as the Trust for Public Land.
Hung is known for her ability to lead complex urban design and landscape architecture projects that require the balancing of development and environmental issues, and was a contributing author to the book Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies from SWA. Hung is currently working to forge memorable public open space with communities in southern California such as Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Glendale, Culver City, Beverly Hills, Hawthorne, and Lynwood. Committed to advancing the field through her teaching and lecture engagements, Hung challenges the next generation of designers to think more creatively about how the practice of landscape architecture can promote a more resilient urbanism, at once culturally resonant and environmentally sound.
Dr. Dwane Jones, Ph.D.
Director of the Center for Sustainable Development + Resilience at the University of the District of Columbia
Dr. Dwane Jones, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Sustainable Development + Resilience at the University of the District of Columbia. The Center is a division of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES). Dr. Jones conducts research and teaches courses in urban sustainability, environmental sustainability, sustainability entrepreneurship, public policy and health, and green infrastructure. He has degrees in urban planning, environmental planning, and urban design.
Diane Jones Allen, D. Eng., MLA, ASLA, RLA
Program Director for Landscape Architecture, the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington
Diane Jones Allen, ASLA, has 30-plus years of experience in professional practice focusing on land planning, and varied scales of open space and park design, including community development work. She is currently the program director for landscape architecture at the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Jones Allen was a tenured professor of landscape architecture at the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore. In Baltimore, she was a member of the Urban Design Architecture Review Panel, for which she provided design guidance on major master planning and development projects in the city.
Jones Allen is principal landscape architect with DesignJones LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana. DesignJones LLC received the 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Community Service Award. She is also on the board of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) and actively participates on its climate change and diversity committees. Her research and practice is guided by the intersection of environmental justice and sustainability in African-American cultural landscapes, including “nomadic” responses to “transit deserts,” places of increasing transportation demand and limited access, as discussed in her book Transit Deserts: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form, published by Routledge Press.
Rebecca Liggins
Landscape Designer, ArquitectonicaGeo
Rebecca Liggins is a landscape designer at ArquitectonicaGEO at their headquarters located in Coconut Grove, Florida. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in studio art from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and minored in public policy. In May 2017 she graduated with a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. While at school she developed an interest in the complex issues surrounding sea level rise and storm water inundation in urban settings, and how to integrate green infrastructure into these solutions. During her final year at Harvard she elected to take two studios, the first based in Houston, Texas, and the second in Miami Beach, Florida. These studios worked with local experts and studied water-related issues faced by both cities due to climate change and complicated by rapid urban development. Since joining ArquitectonicaGEO, Liggins has been involved in the ongoing local conversation with such national and international consultants as Deltares from the Netherlands, whose water management strategies are world renowned.
Adam Ortiz
Director for the Department of the Environment for Prince George’s County, Maryland
As director for the Department of the Environment for Prince George’s County, MD, Adam Ortiz heads a 300-person, $160M agency dedicated to recycling, composting, clean water, renewable energy and humane animal care. Since his assignment in 2012, the County moved from eleventh to first in the state for waste diversion, including an award-winning food scrap compost program that has been recognized by The Washington Post. He launched an innovative public-private partnership stormwater retrofit program that is restoring local streams while creating green jobs, an effort recognized by the Aspen Institute, Governing magazine, the Clinton Global Initiative and the White House.
Previously, Ortiz served three terms as mayor of Edmonston, Maryland, a diverse, working class town outside of Washington, D.C. His accomplishments included a 70 percent drop in crime, the end of devastating flooding, an inclusive immigrant-engagement effort, and building the east coast’s greenest street. The Edmonston Green Street is a model of sustainability utilizing natural bioretention for polluted stormwater in an urban setting, high efficiency LED streetlights powered by wind energy, native plants and trees, improved bike and pedestrian safety, with more than 60% local minority contracting, and has received recognition as a Champion of Change by The White House and a Bright Idea Award from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, among other organizations.
Before his government service, Ortiz worked as a Soros Justice Fellow to abolish the death penalty for juveniles, culminating in the landmark 5-4 United States Supreme Court decision, Roper v. Simmons. He was also deputy director for Amnesty International's Midwest Office (2000-2002) working to abolish the death penalty, police brutality, prison conditions, fairness for asylum seekers and release of prisoners of conscience.
As a volunteer, Ortiz is a member of the local government advisory council to the EPA Administrator and served as president of the Maryland Mayor's Association (2009-2010). Ortiz was born and raised in New York’s Hudson Valley and has a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland.
Vaughn B. Rinner, FASLA
Past President, American Society of Landscape Architects
Vaughn Rinner, FASLA, is known and respected as an articulate, diplomatic, and credible spokesperson for the profession of landscape architecture. A pragmatic visionary, she combines the abilities to listen, synthesize, and facilitate with the insight to move forward and take action. Her leadership style is collaborative, demonstrating her firm belief that we must work together to support the growth and future of the profession.
A graduate of Iowa State University, Rinner has worked for 40 years in both small landscape architectural firms and as a partner in interdisciplinary firms. Her management of a wide variety of project types has given her a broad understanding of the issues landscape architects face in both private and public practice.
Rinner‘s sustained involvement in ASLA has been an integral part of her landscape architecture practice. She completed a term as vice president for finance and investments after serving as chair of the finance and audit committees, helping to lead the Society through challenging financial times. Since relocating to Seattle, she is leading the advocacy efforts for the Washington ASLA Chapter. In acknowledgement of her dedicated service to the society, she was honored to receive the 2014 ASLA President’s Medal.
Nancy C. Somerville, Hon. ASLA
Former Executive Vice President and CEO, American Society of Landscape Architects
Nancy C. Somerville was the executive vice president and CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) from 2000 to 2019. Somerville expanded ASLA’s public relations programs, increased ASLA’s presence on Capitol Hill and in District and regional policy forums, and enabled the Society to become a more effective advocate on active transportation, green infrastructure, and other environmental and land use issues. Somerville initiated the ASLA headquarters’ green roof demonstration project and directed the Society’s green roof and green infrastructure education and advocacy programs. She also directed ASLA’s participation as a founding partner in the Sustainable Sites Initiative™.
Somerville joined ASLA after 18 years with the American Institute of Architects, where she served as managing director and vice president of program areas including membership, government affairs, chapter relations, community development, and continuing education.
In 2004, Somerville was elected to membership in Lambda Alpha International, the honorary land economics fraternity, in recognition of her longtime advocacy for the design professions. She received the Civic Award of Excellence from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities in 2008 and is an honorary member of ASLA and the American Institute of Architects. A native of the Washington, D.C., area, she holds a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.A. from Stanford University.
Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome
Senior Program Officer, Environment
The Kresge Foundation
Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome is senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, responsible for the environment program’s grant portfolio on climate resilient and equitable water systems. Dr. White-Newsome also leads the foundation’s work addressing the intersection of climate change and public health.
Before joining Kresge in early 2016, Dr. White-Newsome served as director of federal policy at West Harlem Environmental Action Inc., where she was involved with leading national campaigns and a 42-member national coalition of environmental justice organizations. Her work helped ensure that the concerns of low-income communities of color were integrated into federal policy, particularly on clean air, climate change, and health issues. She is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and continues to engage in research on climate, health, and equity. She was recently appointed to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Change and Society, and is serving as a lead author for the human health chapter for the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
A native of Detroit, Dr. White-Newsome earned a doctorate in environmental health sciences from the University of Michigan School of Public Health; a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Southern Methodist University; and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University. She serves on the board of the U.S. Climate Action Network, and is a steering committee member of the Health Environmental Funders Network. Jalonne is a 2017 PLACES Fellow with The Funders Network.