Allison Anderson is recognized for civic projects which are carefully crafted and inherently defensible against climate challenges. After Hurricane Katrina devastated her community, designs for recovery focused attention on sustainability, adaptation, and resilience. Her firm, unabridged Architecture, has designed nine shelters for the community and first responders, meeting FEMA 361 guidelines for wind- and impact-resistance, and self-sufficiency during an emergency; and was selected as one of ten teams for Rebuild by Design to create resilient urban planning solutions in Hurricane Sandy-affected areas.

Barbra Batshalom is founder and President of the Sustainable Performance Institute. She is an industry leader whose vision has led to the creation of programs transforming the market from public policy to professional practice. Her work focuses on the intersection of systems, processes and culture. With a diverse background of fine arts, social psychology and 20 years in architecture and sustainability consulting, she brings a variety of skills to her work and a unique perspective engaging the human dynamics of decision-making and creative collaboration to technical work. She's an educator, public speaker and change agent that works with a wide range of governmental, institutional and private sector organizations to help them institutionalize sustainability and achieve measurable improvements in performance and profitability. SPI's Roadmap provides a framework to help firms institutionalize sustainability and deliver consistent, high quality sustainability services and was adopted by the US government last year. She teaches Sustainable Real Estate Development in Brandeis' Int'l Business School.

Heather is the Sustainability Director at Lake|Flato Architects, a firm that has gained national recognition for architecture that responds to its particular place while seamlessly integrating with the natural environment. Leveraging her background in mechanical engineering, Heather directs all Lake|Flato project teams in establishing sustainability goals. She devises strategies and establishes methods and systems to realize those goals under programs such as LEED, the 2030 Challenge, and the Living Building Challenge. Heather works closely with design teams to evaluate appropriate passive systems and performs energy modeling throughout the design process. Heather’s projects have included the Engineered BioSystems Building at Georgia Tech; the Austin Central Library; and Arizona State University Student Health Services Building. She received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Texas at San Antonio.

Aurora is the Embodied Carbon Lead in Brightworks’ office in New York, where she specializes in embodied carbon measurement and reduction strategies. Aurora supports clients and design teams in understanding and driving down the carbon and environmental impacts of their buildings. She has led many whole building life cycle assessments (WBLCAs) for LEED and International Living Future Institute (ILFI) and has published USDA funded research on the embodied carbon of mass timber buildings. With previous experience in operational carbon modeling and evaluating passive strategies, she also helps clients link operational and embodied carbon considerations and evaluate trade-offs. Aurora currently sits on the Steering Committee for the Carbon Leadership Forum in New York City and teaches Environmental Design as a part-time faculty member at Parsons at The New School. She has guest lectured on embodied carbon for the New Buildings Institute, ACSA, IBPSA, Pratt, UPenn UC Berkeley and GSAPP. 

In his current role at Battery Park City Authority, Varun leads strategic design and planning efforts for the 92 acre development in lower Manhattan with a focus on urban resiliency and decarbonization of existing and new buildings. Prior to joining Battery Park City Authority, Varun led the sustainability team at Buro Happold to draft Battery Park City’s Sustainability Plan and Green Guidelines. For over a decade, Varun has worked on integrating environmental analytics with design in firms including HOK and SOM as well as his own practice, Merge Studio in New York. 

With his focus on integrating environmental sensitivities in design, Varun has collaborated with Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (CEA) researchers on novel pedagogical models for environmental design studios. He recently authored a chapter in Energy Modeling in Architecture; A practice guide, published by RIBA. 

Varun has also taught courses at Harvard GSD and RPI (CASE) and is a frequent critic at Princeton School of Architecture and U-Penn Design. He currently serves on the board of the ‘Pokhrama Foundation,’ working to build a net-zero school, providing K-12 education in a remote region of northern India. 

Dan Stine is the Director of Design Technology and leads Investigations (an internal research program), at the top-ranked architecture firm Lake|Flato, in San Antonio, Texas. He is a registered architect (WI), educator, author, blogger, and international speaker. In addition to teaching graduate architecture students at NDSU, he has written 17 textbooks, which are used extensively in the academic market. Committed to climate action, Dan serves on the AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership Group and subcommittees Climate Action|Climate Justice and COTE Communications. He is also the chair of a national Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) committee. Dedicated to furthering the design profession, Dan has given presentations on building performance and design technology in North America, Europe, Singapore, and Australia. He has also presented at AIA conferences, AIA-COTE working groups, universities, lightfair, NVIDIA GTC, Autodesk University, and more.