Michelle Hill Gayle is an award winning architect and interior designer with a broad range of experience, spanning from lead interior designer, furniture specifier, project architect, space planner, construction administrator to project manager and firm owner. Michelle founded Spatializing, Inc. in 2016 to help clients plan and implement facility improvements that enhance their bottom line by supporting employee wellness and productivity.

Michelle holds a BA in Architecture and an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

Dong Kim is a partner in DIALOG's San Francisco studio. He provides architectural design services for various public clients across Northern California. These services range from preliminary visioning projects to nitty-gritty building system retrofits. One of his most noteworthy project is the Rainbow Recreation Center in East Oakland and he collaborated with Better SF to generate a probono feasibility and vision study of potential modular homeless shelter design.  

Dong obtained his BA in architecture from UC Berkeley and has taught 3D modeling courses at Chabot College. He continues to enhance his practice through research in the latest technological advancements.

Cathy Merrill, founding principal of Merrill Morris Partners, a San Francisco-based landscape architectural and planning firm, has covered the spectrum of the profession in her 35+ year career – park/ open space design, public works facilities, transportation and environmental planning, urban design, office/commercial, institutional, campus and residential development. Cathy is well known in both the private and public sectors for her facility and creativity in planning and design, as well as her skillful approach in public relations and advocacy. 

Cathy obtained her BA in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley. 

Elisabeth Sporer, AIA, CIC works with CEOs, founders and leadership teams to build successful A+D firms through an integral approach.  She is a licensed architect in California and Berlin/Germany, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a New Ventures West certified integral coach. Her multi-faceted professional experience spans design and architecture to business strategy and business management in her native Germany and in the US for firms such as EHDD, Perkins + Will and STUDIOS, and her own firm SO|arch. Based in Northern California, she has presented at major AIA chapters in California, including AIA San Francisco, AIA Los Angeles,  AIA East Bay and AIA Central Valley, on topics like business strategy [“Blueprint for Success” in 2020 and “Think-Times Tuesdays” in 2021] , entrepreneurship [“The Free Solo Practice” in 2019] ], ownership transition [“Ownership Transition in the Entrepreneurial Era of Gen X”], mentorship [“High Performance Mentorship” in 2020 and international practice [“Unlearning the Metric System” in 2019 and “Career Strategies for International Professionals” in 2021]. 

Rob Zirkle is the founding principal of brick. Under his guidance the brick team brings a rigorous, value driven design process to a wide variety of project types in architecture, interiors and urban design.  Rob leads the firm’s initiatives in design, client satisfaction, new project acquisition and company culture.  Channeling Rob’s entrepreneurial approach, brick has grown into a thriving 25 person team with $450m of current projects under construction ranging from commercial office, life science, housing and higher education.

Rob holds an MArch degree from Yale University.