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Stefan Bieri
Intl. Assoc. AIA

Stefan Bieri runs his own firm SEAM Projects and is fully committed to project management, the management of construction projects and the digitization of the planning and construction industry. After completing his architecture degree, Stefan developed, planned and managed projects in Switzerland and the USA and led teams of architects, draftspersons and project managers. In his work he combines his interest in leadership, architecture, design, processes and technology and has acquired expert knowledge in these areas. He wants to make this available to customers, project teams, architects and the construction industry so that high-quality buildings can be achieved with a seamless digitized process. Stefan has been an active member of the American Institute of Architects since 2006 and is currently President of the AIA Continental Europe Chapter.

Illya Azaroff
FAIA

Illya Azaroff, FAIA, founder, +LAB architect PLLC. and Assoc. Professor, New York City College of Technology (CUNY), a leader in disaster mitigation, adaptation, resilient planning strategies and design with more than 25 years experience. He consults with cities, governing bodies and design teams around the world. Currently, he is leading the AIA New York Unified Task force City and State on issues surrounding COVID19 Pandemic and is honored to serve as 2021 AIA New York State President. He is advising the federal government HUD, as part of a Resilient Housing Task Force creating new guidance for building resilient housing. He assisted ANCR/ICC – International Code Council to develop community resilience benchmarks. He served as a subject mater expert with the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities. Prior he served as a Technical Advisor to ASPR-Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response informing the NDFR-National Disaster Recovery Framework. He can also be found via TEDx, We are not alone.

His team at +LAB is working the city of Houston on Vision 2020, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, USVI and the City of Oakland Park. In Dominica he is working with the Kalinago first people of the Island to create a series of culturally significant resilience hubs, while in Hawai’i creating a resilience hub for the Ko`olauloa community. His studio created a new All-hazard home in Breezy Point New York Hurrican stong home, noted as the “next generation of housing”. He is a Louise Bethune fellow of the AIA, recipient of 2018 Delgaudio Award from AIA New York State and the AIA Young Architect Award ’14. He is an instructor with NDTPC-National Disaster Training Preparedness Center and is certified trainer for post disaster Safety Assessment Program (SAP) through CalEMA. Illya received a BA in Geography and a BSAS in Architecture from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a BArch and MArch from Pratt Institute, New York. Prior to coming to New York Illya worked in Germany, Italy and Holland.

Martha Thorne
Dean IE School of Architecture and Design

Martha Thorne is Dean of IE School of Architecture & Design, part of the innovative IE University in Madrid/Segovia, Spain. She stepped down from the position of Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in March of this year, a role she held since 2005. Her main interests center on two broad themes:  the contemporary city and how architecture, design, and urbanism can contribute to sustainability and resilience; and how architecture and design education can evolve in both content and pedagogy to be more relevant for today’s challenges.

 From 1995 to 2005, she worked as curator in Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago. She has written numerous articles for books and journals on contemporary architecture and the city. 

 She served on the Board of Directors of the International Archive of Women in Architecture and the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts.  She has participated on many international  juries, including one  for the new National Museum of Chinese Art,  Zaryadye Park in Moscow, and the international jury for ArcVision – Women and Architecture Prize.

 Ms. Thorne received a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics. 

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Martin Fischer
Director CIFE, Stanford University

Professor Fischer's research goals are to improve the productivity of project teams involved in designing, building, and operating facilities and to enhance the sustainability of the built environment. His work develops the theoretical foundations and applications for virtual design and construction (VDC). VDC methods support the design of a facility and its delivery process and help reduce the costs and maximize the value over its lifecycle. His research has been used by many small and large industrial government organizations around the world.

Martin Fischer is Kumagai Professor In The School Of Engineering And Senior Fellow At The Precourt Institute For Energy Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford.

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Stefan Behnisch
FAIA

Stefan Behnisch, born 1957 in Stuttgart, studied philosophy, economics and architecture. Prior to establishing his own practice in 1989, he worked as an architect at Behnisch & Partner, the practice run by his father, Prof. Günter Behnisch. Stefan Behnisch’s firm, since 2005 called Behnisch Architekten, became independent in 1991 and expanded in the years ahead, opening offices in Los Angeles, Boston and Munich, which he directs together with his partners.

With a design portfolio that includes master planning, public buildings, healthcare clinics, sports facilities, redevelopment, offices, schools, and museums, Stefan Behnisch strives to design inclusive buildings that provide maximum benefit to all users. Most of the firm’s buildings have been honored by prestigious institutions and industry organizations alike.

Stefan Behnisch is a frequent lecturer and guest professor. Among others, he has been the Eero Saarinen Chair visiting professor at the Yale School of Architecture, Visiting Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and at the TU Delft, The Netherlands. In 2007 he received a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, and in 2009 a Good Design Award in the category “People” presented by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. In 2013 Stefan Behnisch received the “Energy Performance + Architecture Award”. He is a member of the BDA, the RIBA, the NCARB and the AIA.

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Aaron Betsky
Director, School of Architecture + Design, Virginia Tech University

Aaron Betsky is Director of the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech. Previously, he was President of the School of Architecture at Taliesin. A critic of art, architecture, and design, Mr. Betsky is the author of over a dozen books on those subjects, including forthcoming volumes on Frank Lloyd Wright, and the landscape architecture firm Turenscape. He writes a twice-weekly blog for architectmagazine.com, Beyond Buildings. Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, Mr. Betsky has served as the Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014) and the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006), as well as Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). In 2008, he also directed the 11th Venice International Biennale of Architecture. His latest books, Making It Modern and Architecture Matters, were published last year.

Marija Zima-Bockarjova
R&D Manager for Smart Cities and Solutions

Dr. Marija Zima-Bockarjova is the R&D Manager for Smart Cities and Solutions. As a part of ABB Electrification, she leads the Smart Cities initiative which promotes safe, smart and sustainable electrification solutions to meet customers' and the world's increasing demands. 

 Dr. Marija Zima-Bockarjova started her career at ABB as a Research Scientist and Project Manager in 2010 and has contributed to the development and assessment of many innovative and disruptive technologies, providing strategic technical consulting to ABB leadership and supporting ABB business development across multiple key industrial segments.

 Marija is a member of WEF Global Future Council on Cities of Tomorrow, CIGRE and is the Swiss representative of the CIGRE Study committee “System Operations and Control”. She publishes in IEEE, Elsevier journals and lectures at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich.

Katrin Förster
International Key Account Manager at ABB

In her role as International Key Account Manager at ABB, a leading global technology company, Katrin has earned the respect of the architectural and design profession. 

As a longstanding Corporate Partner of the AIA Europe Chapter, Katrin plays an important role as interface with the design community at large, encouraging the use of Intelligent Building Technologies. The Frozen Music series presented by Katrin focuses on extraordinary buildings throughout the world that are inspiration to all design professionals for their sensitive integration of energy saving and comfort enhancing systems.  

Following studies and work in the USA, France and Brazil, Katrin is based in Bremen, Germany.

Katrin is the moderator of the ABB ‘Frozen Music’ series.

David Goodman
Associate Dean IE School of Architecture and Design

David Goodman is Associate Dean, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Architecture and Professor of Architecture at the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid and Segovia, Spain. He holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from the IE Business School, specializing in Strategic Management and Organization Design. His current research deals with innovations in architecture practice and production during times of socioeconomic turbulence. A graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and of Cornell University, Goodman is coauthor of the book An Introduction to Architecture Theory: 1968 to the Present. His work has also appeared in the journals a+t ,Log, Journal of Architectural Education, Technology | Architecture + Design, and in the anthology Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives, as well as in the book Walter Netsch: A Critical Appreciation and Sourcebook. David is a Licensed Architect in the State of Illinois, USA.

Pierre-Antoine Gatier
ACMH

Born in 1959, Pierre-Antoine Gatier is an architect. He graduated in museology from the École du Louvre in 1983 and from the École de Chaillot in 1987. He won the competition to become chief architect of historic monuments in 1990 and created his own firm the following year.

He began his career in the Marne and Haute-Marne departments. He realized the preliminary study on the Halles de Reims (1929), a vast reinforced cement structure that opened his interest in the conservation of 20th century architecture and the most recent heritage. He continued this research in the Alpes-Maritimes department in 1999, where he was in charge of the restoration of emblematic works of the villegiature, from the Villa Kerylos to the Villa E-1027. He shows his attachment to the modern reinforced concrete achievements of the 20th century, characterized by experimentation and a constant evolution of the implementation’s typologies, renewing the restoration practice.

His agency has 20 collaborators, architects, heritage architects, architect-engineers, art historians, and landscape architects who participate in the elaboration of restoration projects for major monuments such as the Domaine de Chantilly, the Institut de France, the Villa Medici, the headquarters of the Académie de France in Rome, the Bourse de Commerce, and the Opéra Comique in Paris.

Carsten Hanssen
Architecte DPLG

Carsten Hanssen works as a historic preservation architect (DPLG) in France. Born in the Netherlands he moved to France to study architecture at the Versailles School of Architecture. Here he earned a grant for a study year at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. In 2010, he obtained a special master’s degree in preservation from the Ecole de Chaillot, Paris.

His professional career includes many restoration projects in France.  He began working in the office of Pierre-André Lablaude, a chief preservation architect, where he participated in projects including the Mont Saint Michel, the Cathedral of Rouen, and the gardens of the Versailles castle.

In 2006, Hanssen set up his own studio and continues to work on prestigious projects such as, the Ceramics Manufacture in Sevres, the Town Hall of Paris’ 10th District, the Church of Auvers sur Oise, the Roman walls of Le Mans, the Chateau de Blois or the Collegial Saint Ours in Loches. His studio has two offices, one in Paris and one in Chinon, in the heart of the Loire Valley.

His work as a preservation architect in the Loire Valley has made him a specialist in stone preservation and led him to found an international center for preservation studies which is located in a former 14th century mansion, in his new hometown of Chinon.  The Center for Preservation will start its first activities in the summer of 2022.

An International Associate of AIA since 2014, Carsten has served on the Board of the AIA Continental Europe and as 2018 AIA CE Chapter President. He participates regularly in international conferences and competition juries.

Amber Nordholm

Amber Nordholm is a PhD Candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and she holds a master’s in Geographies of Sustainable Development from the University of Bergen. She spent 8 weeks in Lisbon, Portugal researching energy poverty in 2019 and wrote her master’s thesis on this theme. Currently she is working for the national research project, the Norwegian Centre for Energy Transition Strategies (NTRANS), on the theme of accelerating the low-carbon transition through upscaling and diffusion of pilot projects and technological innovation.

Pedro Palma

Pedro Palma is a researcher at the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research (CENSE), at NOVA University of Lisbon, since May 2017, developing research work on topics such as buildings' energy modelling, thermal comfort and energy poverty vulnerability assessments and climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. He holds a Msc. degree in Environmental Engineering, Environmental Systems Engineering Profile, from the same university and is currently a PhD candidate at CENSE, in the PhD Program Environment and Sustainability, working on a big data computational model for assessing future energy poverty vulnerability at different spatial scales, aiming to produce valuable insights for improved decision-making.

João Pedro Gouveia

João Pedro Gouveia is an environmental engineer with a PhD in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies focused on Sustainable Energy Systems. He is a Researcher and Project Manager at the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research (CENSE) at NOVA University of Lisbon. He is also a senior fellow for Energy System solutions on the United States-based Project Drawdown. João Pedro works in the areas of sustainable energy transitions, low carbon energy systems, and related economic and policy analysis; renewable energy technologies; smart and sustainable cities; climate mitigation and adaptation strategies; buildings energy efficiency; energy poverty and thermal comfort mapping and smart meters data mining.

Siddharth Sareen

Siddharth Sareen is an Associate Professor in Energy and Environment at the University of Stavanger and an Associate Professor at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen. He conducts research on the governance of energy transitions at multiple scales and focuses on questions of social and environmental equity and justice. This includes examining inequitable power relations, the governance of household and community energy practices, and accountability in sustainability claims. He has worked in seven countries and established an international, interdisciplinary research profile on resource and energy governance. During his postdoctoral years, Siddharth led a project on solar uptake in Portugal, and supported another on smart grid development in Norway.

Blerina Boshnjaku

Blerina Boshnjaku holds a Master’s Degree in architecture from the University of Prishtina. The theme of her thesis is “Evolutionary Resilience: City and Water Resources”. Through the OeAD scholarship program (Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation), she studied Regional Planning and Development at the Vienna University of Technology, Department for Spatial Development, Infrastructure and Environmental Planning. She has worked on multiple projects in urban design. In 2020 she joined the UN-Habitat program in Kosovo as an Urban Development Associate.

Gresa Morina

Gresa Morina is a young practicing architect holding a degree of Master of Technical Sciences of Architecture from the University of Pristina “Hasan Prishtina”, in Kosovo. During her studies, she completed two exchange semesters at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Faculty of Engineering Economics and Management at Riga Technical University in Latvia. The main influence for her Master Thesis topic evolved from having family members with physical disabilities, and being aware at a very young age how critical their access to education was. Among Gresa's main interests is serving her community, while also emphasizing the importance of climate change through her practice of architecture.

Reed Kroloff
Dean, Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture

Reed Kroloff is Dean of the renown Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Kroloff previously served as Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and as Dean of the School of Architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans, which he led through Hurricane Katrina and its recovery. Mr. Kroloff was also editor-on-chief of Architecture, then the nation’s most highly regarded design publication. Mr. Kroloff is a cofounder of jones|kroloff, a unique advisory practice whose clients have included the Mexican Ministry of Culture, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Aspen Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the University of Chicago, Yale University, Friends of the High Line, the History Channel, Motown, and many others. Reed Kroloff writes and lectures widely, has appeared in many television programs, and is a regular critic in architectural firms and schools across the country. He is a Rome Prize Fellow and holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin.

Moderators and Committee Members

Thomas Vonier
FAIA RIBA

Architect Thomas Vonier FAIA RIBA works from Paris and Washington DC for clients with operations in Africa, East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He was the national president of the American Institute of Architects, and he is the founding president of AIA Europe. In 2017, he was elected president of the International Union of Architects, representing the world’s 3.2 million architects.

Sandra Zettersten
AIA, Dipl.-Ing. Architektin

Sandra is a former President of the AIA Continental Chapter and board member and sponsor chair for over 20 years. An “East Coast girl“ born in Pennsylvania near Philadelphia, she has now lived and practiced architecture longer in Germany than in the USA and has brought up her bi-lingual family here. She has a passion for mentoring, sustainable design, history, nature and volunteering - and remains always curious. 

She became interested and involved in renewable energy and sustainable design in architecture school – designing gravity-fed solar collectors from on-the-shelf materials, working with a professor on low-income housing designs to include solar panels and designing an inner city housing complex with passive solar energy, earth berms, child care center and handicapped access (before there were codes or design standards for these) as her 5th year thesis. 

After graduating from Va Tech Architecture school, she began her architecture career in Charlotte, N.C. with such firms as Odell Associates and Clark, Tribble, Harris and Li on such projects as the Douglas National Airport (now the Charlotte International Airport), Marriott Hotel, IBM Headquarters, office parks, building renovations, industrial buildings and construction management at the Research Triangle). She moved to Europe early in her career where she worked both for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Europe, and private German practice as an architect, master planner, project and construction manager where she became licensed as a German architect. With a design, project and construction management portfolio that includes master planning, public buildings, healthcare clinics, renovation, offices, schools, secure facilities and housing, her expertise includes projects throughout Europe, the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. She has developed and led many environmental remediation and environmental studies and projects to include construction management of the largest asbestos removal and rehabilitation project in Europe at the time. 

As one of her sons stated in a career day essay in 3rd grade, “She wears a hard hat and safety shoes to the construction sites. She loves watching buildings grow and making people happy”. I think that says it all!

Sheila Farouk

Sheila Farouk joined AIACE in October 2020 after graduating with flying colors as an interior architect from the Swiss Design Center “university of architecture, interior and design”, Lausanne, Switzerland.  After over a decade working as a corporate marketing professional in Switzerland, Sheila has set her sights on a career change in interior architecture.  

Sheila said, “I’m thrilled to be part of the planning team and excited by this new career journey.”  A proud native African, Sheila has been raised and educated in Switzerland where she continues to live and work today. 

Sophia Gruzdys
AIA

Sophia Gruzdys is an Architect and Associate Professor at USC.  She earned her Master of Architecture with distinction from Harvard Graduate School of Design

 Sophia has taught multiple levels of design studios and seminars at USC, Cornell University, and Yale, and served as the director of Undergraduate Studies in Architecture. 

 Her research interests include urbanism and design and architectural representation. She maintains an active professional practice and her work has been recognized by the Boston Society of Architects, HGTV, among others.  Prior to establishing her practice, she was a project architect for I.M. Pei and Partners involved with the design of public buildings including the Rock’n Roll Museum in Cleveland. 

 Sophia is active in roles that bridge U.S. and European design interests and has organized international conferences and educational tours for architects.  She contributes articles for “Architectural Record” and writes about European urbanism for “Alto Standing Living” and “Living Archaeology in Rome” of Roma Tre University.  

 Sophia is a registered architect in New York State, Ohio and is the 2022 President-Elect of the AIA Continental Europe Chapter.

Bari Wetmore Salathe
AIA

Bari Wetmore Salathe, AIA, graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a Master of Architecture and Design and was licensed in 1988.

She now lives in Switzerland and serves on the AIA Continental Europe board as the Co-Director for Switzerland.

Bari Wetmore Salathe Business & Technical English Services offers innovative writing and proofreading services for professionals, specializing in architecture & engineering (bws-english.ch).

Mentor - Colleague - Friend.

Bard Rama

Bard Rama is currently the AIACE Chapter Representative to the AIA International, and a member of the AIAI Board. He has served in the AIACE Board positions for several years, and was the 2020 Chapter President. He also is a member of numerous other international organizations, such as PMI. Has performed a peer review of the educational programs as well as served as Moderator and Organizing Conference Committee member on a number of International Conferences, and was invited as a guest speaker at different events.  

He has over twenty one years of experience working for international organizations and has been involved in many stakeholder engagement assignments as well as strategic planning at different levels. His professional experience as an architect includes a considerable number of designs of residential and non-residential buildings. Served as an expert on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.  

Bard is doing his PhD on Ecodistricts, his focus is on the sustainable measures at the neighbourhood scale. He has a special interest in contributing to the achievement of the UN SDGs as well as seeking carbon neutral solutions for buildings, districts and cities.