Mardelle McCuskey Shepley, D.Arch., FAIA is a professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and director of the Institute for Healthy Futures at Cornell University. A fellow in the American Institute of Architects, she has LEED AP, WELL, and EDAC credentials. Dr. Shepley has authored/co-authored six books, the most recent of which is Design for Mental and Behavioral Health (2017). Her recent papers have focused on the design of mental and behavioral health environments and the impact of nature on human behavior.

Joanna Lombard, is a registered architect and Professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture with a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine and is a 2019-2021 Abess Faculty Scholar in the Leonard and Jayne Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Tulane University and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. A founding member of the UM Built-Environment Behavior & Health Research Group with funded projects in the area of neighborhood design and health, she investigates the impacts of greenness and greening initiatives.  

As author and co-author of articles, book chapters, and books, she contributed “The Landscape Design Principles of William Lyman Phillips in the First Heritage Parks,” to Building Eden, The Beginning of Miami-Dade County’s Visionary Park System, which was the recipient of 2021 Florida Trust Award. She is co-leader of one of the eleven university-based teams selected as charter members of the American Institute of Architects Design & Health Research Consortium, and a member of the University of Miami U-LINK team exploring “Hyper-localism: Transforming the Paradigm for Climate Adaptation.” She also works with colleagues in the national research and design collective, Practice Landscape founded in 2006 by Rosetta S. Elkin. 

Lesa is Gresham Smith’s Healthcare Director of Research & Insights. She collaborates with the healthcare team to conduct research on human-centered design and develop scalable tools for knowledge sharing among healthcare planners and designers. Using design thinking strategies, she helps clients and project teams identify opportunities for evidence-based design research and strategically implement research projects. Lesa also develops external collaborative partnerships and she has collaborated on research funded by the Veterans Health Administration and the American Institute of Architects. She was the principal investigator for a clinical trial with the VA investigating multisensory environments for people with dementia, which resulted in the Environmental Design Research Association’s Certificate of Research Excellence. Additionally, her research at Gresham Smith-designed Tallahassee Memorial Hospital M.T. Mustian Center on how evidence-based design strategies can decrease sensory stress in intensive care units earned the project team a Platinum-Level Touchstone Award from The Center for Health Design.

Dr. Julie Zook is an assistant professor at the Texas Tech College of Architecture. Her research focuses on society, health, and architecture. With colleagues, she recently published the co-edited book “The Covert Life of Hospital Architecture,” which presents new research and reflective essays on the design and social life of hospitals. She is a board member of the Texas Tech University Humanities Center. This year she is co-leading a cross-disciplinary speaker series, film series, and spring conference on the theme of health sponsored by the Humanities Center. Outside of the university, she is a board member and research chair for the Foundation for Health Environments Research and owner of the consultancy Spatial Form.