MEET THE NARRAGANSETT BAY JURORS
Dr. Jack Ahern
Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture, UMASS Amherst
Dr. Jack Ahern is a landscape architecture professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on the application of urban landscape ecology theory, with the mission to provide ecosystem services and build resilience capacity. Jack consults on plant community establishment and management for leading design firms, integrating his horticultural, design and ecological knowledge in order to create memorable landscapes.
In 2016 Jack was awarded the Fabos medal for his international leadership in landscape and greenway planning. He received his masters in landscape architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD, in the same field, from Wageningen University & Research.
Iñaki Alday
Dean, Richard Koch Chair in Architecture, Tulane School of Architecture
Principal and Founder aldayjover architecture and landscape
Juror, Spring 2021 Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge
Iñaki Alday received a Master of Architecture degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1992. Together with Margarita Jover, he founded aldayjover architecture and landscape in 1996 in Barcelona.
Since 2016, he has been the co-director and founder (with Pankja Vir Gupta) of the Yamuna River Project, a long-term, interdisciplinary research program whose objective is to revitalize the ecology of the Yamuna River in the Delhi area. Both in academic research and in practice, Inaki promotes a new attitude towards the transformation of our environment and how architecture can contribute to the inhabitation of the most challenged areas of the planet. He utilizes a multidisciplinary global vision and social and environmental ethics to examine the role of architecture and architects.
Evan Bradley
Associate, Bishop Land Design (June 2022)
Participant, Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge (2021)
Evan Bradley is a designer and advocate for sustainable, equitable, and ecologically-centered urban landscapes. Inspired by his time working for Boston's Emerald Necklace parks, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, he is particularly drawn to blue/green infrastructure systems and creating multifunctional landscapes. A lifelong Massachusetts resident, Evan participated in the inaugural Envision Resilience Challenge for the island of Nantucket alongside his Northeastern University classmates and Professor Sara Carr. The experience was integral to expanding Evan's knowledge of climate resilience strategies and applying them to unique settings like Nantucket's downtown.
Evan holds a BS in Environmental Science from Northeastern University and will graduate from Northeastern with a Master's of Design in Sustainable Urban Environments this May. He will begin work as an Associate at Bishop Land Design, based in Quincy, MA, in June 2022.
Pippa Brashear
Resilience Principal at SCAPE, RLA
Pippa works as a Resilience Principal at SCAPE Landscape Architecture. She’s a national expert on resilience planning and design for climate adaptation. She works with multi-disciplinary teams to develop landscape strategies and next-century infrastructure that integrate environmental, economic and social benefits. Pippa leads both planning and built work teams within SCAPE, bringing an ecological and people-driven approach to her projects.
Pippa holds a Master’s in Landscape Architecture and Master’s in Urban Planning with Distinction from the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard University. She also holds a Bachelor’s of Arts, cum laude, in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College.
Yanel de Angel
Principal, Managing Director at Perkins & Will, Boston
Yanel is a steadfast champion of design that is inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and purposeful. These values are driven by her belief that we are all meant to do good in this world. With a reputation for simplifying the complex and building consensus among stakeholder groups, Yanel has been instrumental in the growth of global residential practice and the execution of large mixed-use projects at Perkins & Will.
She has leveraged her expertise to spur significant initiatives such as ResilientSEE, a global platform of design professionals, private industry, and academia, that offers comprehensive, pro-bono resilient planning and design to communities around the world. Yanel received her MDes from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
April De Simone
Principal, Trahan Architects
April is a transdisciplinary designer, bringing 20 years of experience navigating the intersectionality of architecture, planning, and systems thinking. Her work is inspired by her experiences growing up in the Bronx, New York. In 2015, April co-founded “Designing the WE'', which integrates urban planning, economic development, collaborative engagement, design and systems thinking to co-create robust actions centered on addressing complex social challenges to promote transformative change. There, she launched the co-curated exhibition and platform, “Undesign the Redline”. This project exposes the historical and contemporary spatial reverberations of unjust policies and practices like residential racial ordinances, Redlining, and Urban Renewal.
April sits on the board of the American Sustainable Business Council and works closely on a local and national level with diverse stakeholders within the design sectors, like the Urban Design Forum, on issues of race, equity and democratic architecture.
April holds a BA from New York University, an MS in Design and Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design, and she is completing her Masters of Architecture this spring at the City College of New York.
Susannah Drake
Founding Principal, DLANDstudio
Susannah Drake is a principal and founder of DLANDstudio. She specializes in complex projects that require a synthesized, analytical and research-based approach. Since founding DLANDstudio in 2005, Susannah has worked on projects ranging in scale from intimate gardens to large-scale urban planning initiatives. Susannah is a leader in resilient urban design and has dedicated much of her practice to developing and implementing design strategies to confront the impacts of climate change.
Susannah’s research has been at the forefront of innovation on urban ecological infrastructure. Her exploration of campus landscape design and large-scale urban infrastructure has received funding through grants from the Graham Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Susannah has led design studios at Harvard University, Washington University in St. Louis, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Cooper Union, and City College of New York. She served as President and Trustee of the New York ASLA and as a Trustee of the Van Alen Institute. Her work has received numerous national and international awards and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Susannah earned a Bachelor of Arts at Dartmouth College and Master of Architecture and Master of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
David Everett
Principal Planner, City of Providence
Advisor, Spring 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge
David Everett grew up in Providence and has worked for the Department of Planning and Development for the past 17 years. He has concentrated primarily on long-range planning and special projects, with an environmental, resiliency and water resources focus. Previously, he was a small-town planning director in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a speechwriter, a planning consultant, and an environmental advocate, writing a citizens’ land use manual, local comprehensive plans, news articles and harbor management plans. David’s current responsibilities and projects include stormwater management planning, flood zone management, resilience planning, brownfields grant management and chairing the Providence Port/Community Working Group. David has a Master’s of City Planning from MIT, where he concentrated in environmental design and development. He is also a painter, primarily of landscapes in varying degrees of abstraction.
Grover Fugate
Former Executive Director, Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council
Current President, Fugate Consulting
Advisor, Spring 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge
Grover Fugate worked as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). In his role of 34 years, Grover was responsible for overseeing the development of all policies and programs for the state’s coastal program. He recently was the project manager of the Council’s new Shoreline Change Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), which is a forward-looking plan about how climate change is impacting Rhode Island's shoreline. The project aims to develop appropriate responses to this threat and protect the state’s coastal infrastructure.
In light of his leadership with the Ocean SAMP project and other coastal planning efforts, Grover has earned many significant awards. These include the 2018 Regional Adaptation Leadership Award from the American Society of Adaptation Professionals; two prestigious international 2017 Peter Benchley Ocean Awards, one as winner for ‘Excellence in Solutions’ for Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan and the second for New England Regional Ocean Plan; the 2017 New England Environment Business Council, Ira W. Leighton, Jr. Outstanding Environmental – Energy Technology Achievement Award for the Block Island Wind Farm Project; the 2016 Congressional Service Award for the Ocean SAMP; the 2010 Susan Snow‐Cotter Award for Excellence in Ocean and Coastal Resource Management from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Grover is also the recipient of the 2010 Regional Sea Grant Outstanding Outreach Award, the 2008 Coastal America Award for Habitat Restoration, and the 2008 Rhode Island Sea Grant Lifetime Achievement Award.
Anjelica Gallegos
Designer, Atkin Olshin Schade Architects
Participant, Spring 2021 Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge
Anjelica S. Gallegos (Jicarilla Apache Nation/Pueblo of Santa Ana) focuses her architecture practice on advancing design and functionality in threatened places like the Southwest and Arctic. Anjelica works in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, an award-winning architecture, interiors and planning firm that is dedicated to environmental and cultural stewardship for tribal communities. She recently served as an inaugural resident at the Center for Architecture Lab where she expanded her academic research on Indigeneity and relational aspects to nature.
Anjelica is a co-founder of the Indigenous Society of Architecture, Planning and Design, with work featured in Architectural Digest, ByDesign Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine and Metropolis Magazine. Anjelica served as an ambassador of President Obama’s Generation Indigenous initiative, advocating for Indian and environmental priorities at the national level, including at the White House Tribal Nations Conference and United State of Women Summit. Prior, Anjelica served in public relations for the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. Anjelica graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Cum Laude) in Architecture from the University of Colorado Denver. She graduated with her Master of Architecture degree from Yale School of Architecture as an Alpha Rho Chi Medal recipient.
Dr. Jennifer Karberg
Research Program Supervisor, Nantucket Conservation Foundation
Advisor, Spring 2021 Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge
Dr. Jennifer Karberg is the Research Program Supervisor for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and oversees implementation of the multi-faceted research program of the Foundation. Jen’s personal research interests include fresh and salt water wetland ecology and restoration, climate change and coastal resiliency, rare plant ecology, and disturbance ecology.
Initially from the midwest, Jen first studied plant ecology at the University of Michigan for undergrad and then obtained advanced degrees from Michigan Technological University in wetland ecology and rare species conservation genetics. Jen is a founding member of the Sandplain Grassland Network, and in her 12 years on island, she has been the co-chair of the Nantucket Biodiversity Initiative Research Conference, served on the Nantucket Conservation Commission and various boards of the Society of Wetland Scientists. Jen is currently representing NCF on the Nantucket Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee and is Chair of the Women in Wetlands section of the Society of Wetland Scientists.
Jason D. Martin
Jason D. Martin has worked for the last 20 years as the Preservation Planner for the City of Providence. He is a native Rhode Islander, having grown up in Providence. He has degrees in Art History and History from Rhode Island College, and a Masters of Science in Historic Preservation from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
Alan Plattus
Professor, Yale University
Lead Faculty, Spring 2021 Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge
Alan Plattus began teaching at Yale in 1986 after serving on the faculty of Princeton University for seven years. He is the current director of the School’s Ph.D. program and the Yale Urban Design Workshop and Center for Urban Design Research (YUDW), which he founded in 1992. This initiative undertakes research and design studies for communities throughout Connecticut and the metropolitan region. Current YUDW projects, funded by HUD’s Rebuild by Design program, include planning for a Heritage Park along the Thames River between New London and Groton, Connecticut and resiliency planning for Bridgeport and the Connecticut coast.
Alan has served on the boards of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, the Journal of Architectural Education, and Architectural Research Quarterly, as well as the Connecticut Main Street Center and the New Haven Preservation Trust. Alan received a B.A. from Yale University and an M.Arch. from Princeton University
Curt Spalding
Principal, Spalding Environment/Climate Strategies
Advisor, Spring 2022 Envision Resilience Narragansett Bay Challenge
Curt Spalding is the Principal Consultant for Spalding Environment/Climate Strategies. He recently served as the Professor of the Practice for the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Previously, Curt served the Obama Administration as USEPA New England Region 1 Administrator and from 1990 to 2008 he acted as Save The Bay’s Executive Director. Curt has extensive experience in the environmental protection field as an advocate, policy analyst and administrator. Some of his accomplishments include the development of the EPA Phoenix Award winning Save The Bay Center, in Providence Rhode Island and advancing work to restore and protect New England’s iconic inland and coastal waters, especially Narragansett Bay. Research on urban resilience was Curt’s primary area of focus at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society.
Most recently Curt facilitated the development of the Providence Resilience Partnership (PRP) — A non-governmental organization, the PRP convenes, collaborates and communicates on the impact of climate change while promoting social and infrastructure investments that build resilience and address risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate change.