Head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Bar-Ilan University

Moshe Bar is the head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Bar-Ilan University. He is an internationally recognized cognitive neuroscientist, whose novel research has made revolutionary contributions to our understanding of perception, cognition and issues in psychiatry. Before moving to Israel to assume the directorship of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University, which he has headed for eight years, Bar was an Associate Professor in Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Radiology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Bar and his team discovered that the human brain is engaged in thinking about the future surprisingly frequently, and in doing so it relies heavily on memory.

Bar examines how mental simulations (such as planning and mind-wandering) influence foresight and facilitate our daily interaction with the environment. Along with exploring how the brain extracts and uses contextual information to generate predictions and guide cognition efficiently, his work focuses on questions spanning the flow of information in the cortex during visual recognition and conscious perception, contextual associative processing of scene information, the cortical mechanisms mediating the formation of first impressions, the visual elements that determine human aesthetic preference and the brain’s states of mind. Bar uses neuroimaging (fMRI, MEG, EEG), psychophysical and computational methods in his research. His book, Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity, came out last year and has so far been translated to 12 languages. 

Principal and the Global Cultural and Civic Practice Chair for international architecture and design firm Perkins&Will

An award-winning architect, strategist, and mentor, her career has been defined by visionary, complex, and culturally-significant projects that navigate social issues of equity and justice and restore lost cultural connections by honoring history and memory, such as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Her current work includes Destination Crenshaw, a community-inspired project in South Los Angeles that will be the nation’s largest art and cultural celebration of African American contribution to world culture and the much-anticipated expansion of the Motown Museum in Detroit, a project that commemorates the history and continuing legacy of Berry Gordy and Motown’s unique artists and internationally-recognized sound. Other noteworthy projects include Greenville Town Common at Sycamore Hill in Greenville, N.C.; North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, N.C.; the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, N.C.; the District of Columbia Anacostia and Tenley Friendship Neighborhood Libraries in Washington, D.C.; and the recent design competition finalist proposal for the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, D.C.

Howard has been integral in developing and realizing Remembrance Design™, an urban and architectural design process that engages historically marginalized and negatively impacted communities to redress painful issues, bridge diverse experiences, inspire resilient communities, and infuse culture into projects, and is a founding member of Perkins&Will’s global Diversity and Inclusion Council and a member of the firmwide Board of Directors. She is a LEED-Accredited Professional, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects, and a member of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. She has been an Associate Professor of Architecture at North Carolina State University’s College of Design and currently serves on the Architecture School’s Advisory Board. She is a past member of the University of Virginia Alumni Association’s Board of Managers and the University of Virginia School of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Board and is a current member of the School of Architecture Foundation Board.  She has been a visiting Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington and is the 2019 and 2020 Kea Distinguished Professor at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. 

Global Director of Research, and Partner at HKS; Associate Professor of Practice at the Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan; Executive Director of the nonprofit Center for Advanced Design Research and Evaluation

Dr. Upali Nanda is Partner and Global Director of Research for HKS, an international architectural firm where she spearheads and leads research projects globally. She also teaches as Associate Professor of Practice at the Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan and serves as the Executive Director for the non-profit Center for Advanced Design Research and Education. Her practice-based research around health and wellbeing, neuroscience and architecture, sensthetics, point of decision design, and outcome-driven design has been widely published. She has won various research and innovation awards including the 2018 Women in Architecture Innovator Award.

Thomas Ventulett Chair of Architecture at Georgia Tech; Co-Founder and Board Member of MASS Design Group

Michael Murphy is an architectural designer, educator and writer, whose work focuses on how the built environment shapes our lives, our health, and our communities. Michael’s recent book, The Architecture of Health, traces the history of medical design and its attempt to align architecture with health outcomes. Michael’s new practice looks at the ownership of the built environment and how sharing access can solve the climate and social crises we face.

Michael is the current Thomas Ventulett Chair of Architecture at Georgia Tech, and serves on the board of MASS Design Group, which he co-founded and led until 2022; where he led design of such projects as the Butaro District Hospital, the National Memorial For Peace and Justice, and the Embrace Memorial in Boston. Michael has a BA from University of Chicago, an M.Arch from Harvard graduate school of Design, and lives in Boston with his wife and two children. He is from Poughkeepsie, New York.

Professor of Neural Science; Director, Center for Neural Science at New York University

André Fenton, professor of neural science at New York University, investigates the molecular, neural, behavioral, and computational aspects of memory. He studies how brains store experiences as memories, how they learn to learn, and how knowing activates relevant information without activating what is irrelevant. These investigations are founded in the how the brain computes knowledge of space, particularly the locations and directions that are the framework for experience. His investigations integrate across levels of biological organization, his research uses genetic, molecular, electrophysiological, imaging, behavioral, engineering, and theoretical methods. This computational psychiatry research is helping to elucidate and understand mental dysfunction in diverse conditions like schizophrenia, autism, and depression.

Fenton founded Bio-Signal Group Corp., which commercialized an FDA-approved portable, wireless, and easy-to-use platform for recording EEGs in novel medical applications. He implemented a CPAP-Oxygen helmet treatment for COVID-19 in Nigeria and otherLMICs and develops the use information technology for the patient-centric coordination of behavioral health services that is desperately needed to equitably deliver care for mental health. He hosted PBS’ NOVA Wonders, and chairs the NIMH Board ofScientific Counselors.

Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine Research Director; Founding Director, University of Arizona Institute on Place, Wellbeing & Performance; Professor of Medicine, with joint appointments in Psychology, Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture, and Nutrition and Wellness

Internationally recognized design and health pioneer Esther Sternberg’s research takes mind-body science from molecules to built environments. She is the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine Research Director, Founding Director, University of Arizona Institute on Place, Wellbeing & Performance, and Professor of Medicine, with joint appointments in Psychology, Architecture, Planning & Landscape Architecture, and Nutrition and Wellness. Formerly National Institutes of Health Senior Scientist and Section Chief, Sternberg has advised the U.S. Surgeon General, General Services Administration, Department of Defense, U.S. Green Building Council, International WELL Building Institute and the Vatican.

Sternberg’s wearable devices research with GSA measuring office environments’ impacts on health informs post-COVID workspace design and re-entry. She received the Federal Government’s highest awards, and has authored numerous scholarly articles and books. Her popular book, Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-being, helped re-ignite the design and health movement and her new book, WELL at WORK: Creating wellbeing in any workspace, brings that science into the post-COVID era.

Committee Chair
IAM Lab Founder and Executive Director
Co-Director of the NeuroArts Blueprint

Susan Magsamen is the Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) Center for Allied Neuroaesthetics, a pioneering initiative from the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her body of work lies at the intersection of brain sciences and the arts – and how our unique response to aesthetic experiences can amplify human potential. Magsamen is the author of the Impact Thinking model, an evidence-based research approach to accelerate how we use the arts to solve problems in health, well-being, and learning. In addition to her role at IAM Lab, she is an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and serves as co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint initiative in partnership with the Aspen Institute.

The author of eight books, Susan’s newest book with Random House is Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, written with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Hardware at Google. It is a journey through the science of neuroaesthetics that offers proof of how our brains and bodies are transformed when we participate in the arts and aesthetic experiences, and how this knowledge can improve our physical and mental health, help us learn and flourish, and build stronger communities.

Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics.

He received his BA in Philosophy from Haverford College, M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his neurology residency at the University of Chicago. The past Chair of Neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital, Chatterjee’s research addresses neuroaesthetics, spatial cognition, language, and neuroethics.

He wrote The Aesthetic Brain: How we evolved to desire beauty and enjoy art and co-edited Brain, Beauty, and Art: Bringing Neuroaesthetics in Focus as well as Neuroethics in Practice: Mind, Medicine, and Society, and The Roots of Cognitive Neuroscience: Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology. Chatterjee received the Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology from the American Academy of Neurology and the Rudolph Arnheim Prize for contributions to Psychology and the Arts from the American Psychological Association. He is a founding member of the Board of Governors of the Neuroethics Society, the past President of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and the Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Society.

Distinguished professor of psychological science in the University of California at Irvine’s School of Social Ecology

Among his diverse interests is his compassion research. Thayer studies the body’s longest nerve, called the vagus, as it relates to compassion. He has found that those who are more compassionate exhibit more activity along their vagus nerve. His numerous accolades include the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s 2019 Distinguished Scientist Award, the most prestigious honor granted by the organization. It is based on total career achievement and recipients must have achieved scholarly distinction by making a series of distinguished empirical contributions or contributing substantially to the development of new theories or methods.

Thayer holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in psychophysiology from New York University and a B.A. in psychology from Indiana University. Specializing in health psychology, psychopathology, health disparities, heart rate variability, emotions, stress and neuroimaging research, he came to UCI from Ohio State University, where he was the Ohio Eminent Scholar in Health Psychology and where he ran the Emotions and Quantitative Psychophysiology Lab.

Global Design & Brand Director at Ford Motor Company

Jennifer Kolstad is Global Design & Brand Director at Ford Motor Company, where she is evolving Ford’s iconic brand and culture using human-centered design. She provides design oversight focused on Ford’s physical environments and her role seeks to unify Ford’s brand language across typologies through architecture and design, investigating opportunities for cultural and behavioral change, elevating design impact internal and external to the global Ford ecosystem.

Kolstad previously co-directed the Collective Studio at HKS, merging disciplines and hybrid typologies to innovate design outcomes. She also worked at SOM, Gensler, and ALDAR in the United Arab Emirates. She designed the 2 million-square-foot, 800-bed Kuwait Children’s Hospital in Kuwait City and the 1 million-square-foot YAS Marina Formula One Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Maria Rosario Jackson is Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). For more than 25 years, her work has focused on understanding and elevating arts, culture, and design as critical elements of healthy communities. Her work blends social science and arts- and humanities-based approaches to comprehensive community revitalization, systems change, the dynamics of race and ethnicity, and the roles of arts and culture in communities. After confirmation by the U.S. Senate in December 2021, Jackson became the 13th chair of the National Endowment for the Arts in January 2022. With this historic appointment, she is the first African American and Mexican American woman to serve as chair of the NEA.

Dr. Jackson has a long career in strategic planning, policy research and evaluation with philanthropy, government, and nonprofit organizations. She has served as an advisor on philanthropic programs and investments at national, regional, and local foundations.

Chair Jackson is currently on leave from Arizona State University, where she is a tenured Institute Professor in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. In that role, she has led the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities and held an appointment in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions (2017-2022). For almost ten years, she also served as a senior advisor for Arts and Culture and Strategic Learning, Research and Evaluation at the Kresge Foundation.

Cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo and director of its Urban Realities Laboratory.

Ellard works at the intersection of urban and architectural design and experimental psychology. He has developed a novel set of methods by which the human response to the built environment can be measured using a toolkit consisting of both traditional psychological methods and sensor-based measurements of physiology and brain function. 

Ellard publishes his work frequently in the peer-reviewed scientific literature but he also engages in extensive knowledge mobilization work involving collaboration and partnership with architects, museums and other NGOs. He is an Urban Design and Mental Health Fellow, a Salzburg Global Fellow and an editor of the Journal of Environmental Psychology and the Journal of Urban Design and Mental Health. Ellard’s most recent book is Places of the Heart (Bellevue Literary Press, 2015).

Professor and past Chair of the Department of Cognitive Science at University of California San Diego

Kirsh has written on situated and embodied cognition, how environments can be shaped to simplify/extend cognition, and how space, external representations, our bodies and even manipulable objects become interactive tools for thought. 

Kirsh holds a D. Phil.(Oxford), did postdoctoral work at MIT (AI Lab), and held research or Visiting Professor positions at MIT and Stanford, and the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL. He is Co-Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination and is Adjunct Professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. He is also President of the Board of Directors for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA).

President of the Johns Hopkins University

Ronald J. Daniels has served as the 14th president of Johns Hopkins University since 2009. During his tenure, Daniels has focused his efforts on several key areas: strengthening inter-disciplinary collaboration in research and education, expanding student access and support, enhancing the Hopkins experience for undergraduate and graduate students, deepening the university’s partnerships with its neighbors in Baltimore, and supporting economic and social innovation. 

Daniels’ focus on interdisciplinary collaboration has produced a series of transformative initiatives aimed at addressing some of society’s most commanding challenges. With support from alumnus Michael Bloomberg, Daniels launched the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors program that has recruited scholars from across the globe to hold joint appointments in two or more divisions of the university. Daniels also has led the creation of ambitious, multidisciplinary initiatives such as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute, which aims to strengthen civic engagement and encourage robust dialogue among all citizens; the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs; the William H. Miller Departments of Philosophy and Physics; the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute; the Bloomberg American Health Initiative; and the Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute. 

Author of the internationally recognized book What Universities Owe Democracy, Daniels is a leading voice in arguing for the indispensable role that universities play in sustaining democratic societies at a critical moment in history when democracies around the globe are under threat. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, received a Carnegie Corporation of New York Academic Leadership Award in 2015, and was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2016. Before coming to Johns Hopkins, he was provost and professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and dean and James M. Tory Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. He has been visiting professor and Coca-Cola World Fellow at Yale Law School and John M. Olin Visiting Fellow at Cornell Law School.

Co-Director of the Human Experience Lab at Perkins&Will

Erika Eitland, MPH, SCD, is a public health scientist and Co-Director of the Human Experience Lab at Perkins&Will. She is the co-host & co-creator of the Inhabit Podcast, and leads an integrated public health research lab focused on designing and building healthy spaces, with a focus on K-12, healthcare, and urban planning. Eitland received her Doctorate of Science in Environmental Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and her MPH in Environmental Science from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Committee Member
Architect and Founding Board Member and Former President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA)
Visiting Scholar and Research Collaborator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Frederick Marks, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Six Sigma Green Belt, is a Visiting Scholar and Research Collaborator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, C.A., where he is associated with the Regulatory Biology laboratory and The Vision Center laboratory. Marks has been a licensed architect for over 30 years and has a planning & design specialty in healthcare and laboratory science facilities. He holds degrees in architecture and business administration with a major in real estate & urban land economics. Marks is a founding Board member and former President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) in San Diego, C.A.. He is a former national American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board Knowledge Committee member, advisor to the national AIA Research Summits, and past President of a local AIA chapter. Marks has been an advisor to the National Institute of Building Sciences and Delos WELL Living Laboratory. He currently advises the national ASHRAE Standing Guideline Project Committee on indoor environmental quality, International Child Art Foundation, Wright-Ingraham Institute, and the International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics.

Director of Hume; Founder, past Director, and current Advisor to The Centre for Conscious Design

Itai Palti is a practicing architect, researcher, and multidisciplinary artist focusing on the relationship between people and place. He is Director of Hume, a Science-Informed architecture and urban design practice. In 2015, Itai founded the Conscious Cities movement: a new field of research and practice for building environments that are aware and responsive, using data analysis, AI, tech, and science-informed design. For his work in advancing changes in the design profession, he was named by Metropolis Magazine as one of 2020’s ‘Game Changers’ in transformative ideas in Health, Social Justice, Technology, and Urbanism.

Itai is the Founder, past Director, and current Advisor to The Centre for Conscious Design. Carrying out thought leadership and advisory roles in a number of other research and policy bodies, Itai contributes to strategies that focus on systems change and the promotion of design as a socially conscious profession. His work and writing has been featured internationally and he is a regular speaker at events focused on the built environment and human impact.

Committee Member
Architect and Founder of Reddymade, lecturer at the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture

Suchi Reddy founded Reddymade in 2002 with an approach to design that privileges the emotional quality of human engagement and experience through spatial and artistic interactions. She is dedicated to celebrating diversity and equality, as well as addressing the economic, social, environmental, and cultural impacts of her work on both the user and the planet. Reddy teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. She was the 2022 Walton Critic at the Catholic University of America, and the Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign–Urbana in 2019, where her work focused on contemporary architectural experience through the lens of neuroaesthetics, neurophenomenology, and sensory design.

Reddy has presented and lectured on the firm’s work at numerous venues including The Salk Institute for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s annual conference, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. She sits on the board of the Design Trust for Public Space, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Madame Architect; and she is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at Detroit Mercy School of Architecture + Community Development.

Professor and Director of the Center for Design & Health in the School of Architecture, University of Virginia.

An environmental psychologist and former head of Landscape Architecture for an international architectural practice, she writes, lectures, and consults for a wide range of academic and public audiences on human health-centered design for the built environment. She is an expert in restorative environments that support mental health including an important role for public parks and urban green space.  Her book on this subject, Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing (Roe and McCay, 2021) explores a new way of designing cities that puts mental health at the forefront. A co-edited book, Infrastructure, Wellbeing and the Measurement of Happiness (Mahmoudi, Roe & Seaman, Routledge, 2022), continues this theme.

Roe has won numerous awards and research grants exploring a rich variety of architectural and landscape contexts and their psychological impact on people. Her scholarly outputs include over 55 peer review publications including for the World Health Organization and The Lancet.  She acts as expert advisor to the UK’s Design Council and advises various community organizations and foundations on strategies for promoting and implementing health-centered design.  She serves as a mentor and coach to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Scholars Program.

Founder of LVS Architecture

Luis Othón Villegas-Solis is an award-winning designer and architect. He founded LVS Architecture, a firm that explores the connections between behavioral psychology and built spaces. His firm aims to transform sensory experiences in users through design and architecture. Villegas-Solis has been a guest speaker at national and international universities such as the New School ofArchitecture and Design, Harvard University, School of Visual Arts, and Pratt Institute. In 2021 he was selected to present his research work on a Neuroarchitectural Interpretation System at the Neuroscience and Architecture at the ANFA Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture. Villegas-Solis has been a teaching assistant for Paola Antonelli. He researched and contributed to the exhibitions: Design and The Elastic Mind and Safe: Design Takes on Risk at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At the beginning of his career, Villegas-Solis worked for Enrique Norten Architects in New York and Rockwell Group, one of the leading experience design firms in the United States. He received a Master’s Degree in Design Studies from Harvard University in 2003 and a degree in Architecture from Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in 1997.

Villegas-Solis is the former director of the School of Architecture and Interiors at CEDIM Monterrey, Mexico. He has made written contributions to various publications, websites, and magazines, such as The Architects Newspaper in New York. He is the founder of Design, Belly, and Brain, a lab of ideas exploring and investigating the intersection between design and brain and architecture perception and human behavior. Mr. Villegas collaborated with Dr. Michael Arbib and Meredith Banasiak in a chapter called “Systems of Systems: Architectural Atmosphere, Neuromorphic Architecture, and the Well-Being of Humans and Ecospheres” for Mitra Kanaani’s latest book, The Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking: Healthful Ecotopian Visions for Architecture and Urbanism. His most recent project is the INPAD Institute of Neurosciences for Architecture and Design co-creation, where neuroscience and cognitive science research are promoted to inform architecture and design.

Director of the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate concentration at The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning 

Julio Bermudez has directed the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate concentration at The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning since 2010. He holds a MArch and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Minnesota, and has taught architectural design, communication, and theory for over 35 years. Bermudez’ interests focus on the relationship between architecture, culture, and spirituality through the lens of phenomenology and neuroscience. He has widely lectured, led symposia, taught, and published in these areas. Current projects include two neuro-phenomenological studies of sacred vs. secular architecture (funded by the Templeton Religion Trust). He has published three books: Spirituality in Architectural Education (CUA Press, 2023), Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred Space (CUA Press, 2015), and Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality (Routledge, 2015, co-edited with Thomas Barrie and Phillip Tabb).

Bermudez has received several national and international recognitions, including the 1998 AIA Education Honors Award, the 2004-05 ACSA Creative Achievement Award, the 2005 Arturo Montagu Creative Career Prize (bestowed by Latin American SiGraDi), the 2006 ACADIA Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2010 Sasada Award for significant record in scholarship and service (conferred by CAADRIA, Asia), and the 2021 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award. In 2007, Bermudez co-founded the Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum, a 700+ member organization spanning 64 countries, and has served as its president since 2015.

Director of University Interdisciplinary Studies and Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Hartford

Margerets’ Spatial Cognition and Physical Environments (SCaPE) Laboratory investigates the cognitive mechanisms that underlie space perception and spatial cognition in select populations including visually impaired individuals and spatial experts such as dancers and architects. She cultivates a unique approach to her research and teaching that is truly interdisciplinary.

Tarampi graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a BArch and University of Utah with a Ph.D. in Cognition and Neural Science. Her interests in the effect of architecture on quality of life brought her to the American Institute of Architects in Washington, D.C., then the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and then the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UCSB. Tarampi is also an accomplished visual artist whose work explores assumptions and manipulations of the human perceptual system.

Senior Vice President at Delos who leads the Delos Solutions team. She is passionate about the impact of design and the built environment on the human experience

Her practical experience as an architect, combined with a doctorate in neuropsychology and experience as a consultant and project lead in the wellness real estate sector allows her to harness an agile, multidisciplinary approach to discover and implement comprehensive, bespoke, and creative strategies to elevate the status quo. She received her Ph.D. from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, and her MArch from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.

John and Eileen Gerngross Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Director of the Human-AI Integration Lab

Sra received her Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab in 2018 advised by Professor Pattie Maes. She has published at the most selective HCI, VR, and machine learning venues such as CHI, UIST, VRST, AAAI, and CVPR where she received four best paper awards and honorable mentions. From 2014-2015, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation well-being research fellow at the Media Lab. In spring 2016, she received the Silver Award in the annual Edison Awards Global Competition that honors excellence in human-centered design and innovation. MIT selected her as an EECS Rising Star in 2018. In 2023 she was awarded an NSF CAREER Award for her work on Human-AI Interaction. Her research has received extensive media coverage from leading media outlets (e.g., from Engadget, UploadVR, MIT Tech Review) and has drawn the attention of industry research, such as Toyota Research, Samsung Research, and Unity 3D.

Cognitive neuroscientist at City College of New York

Ed’s research group, the Visual Neuroaesthetics Lab, uses behavioral and brain imaging techniques to study the psychological and neural basis of aesthetic experiences, creative insight and curiosity. Through his work and service, Vessel aims to elevate the international profile of neuroaesthetics research: he is a board member of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and hosts events focused on neuroaesthetics at international conferences. He received his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Southern California. Vessel is former co-director of the New York University Artlab, and was most recently a senior scientist the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany.

Practicing environmental psychologist and a principal at Design With Science

She has extensive experience integrating neuroscience-based insights to develop recommendations for the design of places, objects, and services that support desired cognitive, emotional, and physical outcomes/experiences. Her client base is worldwide and includes individuals and organizations that produce and/or use design solutions (for example, design firms, manufacturers, service providers, design user groups, both commercial and nonprofit associations). 

Augustin, PhD, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the editor of Research Design Connections, a monthly subscription newsletter with daily blog, that reports and synthesizes (in everyday language) the findings of recent and classic research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and the social sciences that are useful to designers. She holds leadership positions in professional organizations such as the Transdisciplinary Workplace Research Network (board secretary) and the Environmental Design Research Association (network chair). Augustin is the author of several books: Designology (2019, Mango), Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009), and The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012; Cindy Coleman, co-author).   

Sam Gosling is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, Austin

His research focuses on the psychology of physical space, how personality is expressed in everyday context, and on new methods for collecting data in the behavioral sciences. His approach is ecological, emphasizing the importance of studying individuals in the contexts of their natural habitats. Gosling’s book Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You is based on the idea that we deliberately and inadvertently express our personalities in the environments in which we live and work. Clarivate have identified him as one of the most highly cited scientists in the world.

Committee Member
Author and Architecture Critic

Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Ph.D. and former Harvard professor, writes about architecture, landscape, and cities and their effect on human health and well-being. Her Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives (HarperCollins; also published in Chinese, Russian, and Korean) won a Nautilus Book Award in 2017 for its contribution to social and environmental justice, and Goldhagen was an opening-night Spotlight speaker at the AIA National Convention that same year.

A frequent keynote speaker, Goldhagen has won numerous awards and grants (including three from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts) for her criticism and writing on modern and contemporary architecture and landscapes, with an emphasis on their psychological and cognitive effects on people. She has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, served as Contributing Editor for Art in America and Architectural Record, and was The New Republic’s Architecture Critic for nearly a decade. Goldhagen also has had a distinguished academic career with scholarly publications that include Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism (Yale University) and Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture (co-edited with Réjean Legault, MIT Press) as well as numerous essays and reviews in premier architecture- and art-historical journals.

UPS Foundation Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University; Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Her laboratory studies the impact of building design and materials on human wellbeing, developing design tools to quantify nature experience in buildings, and understanding the role of the built environment in public perceptions of and support for affordable housing. They explore how buildings can include both physical and digital adaptations to improve wellbeing outcomes including new methods of bringing nature and the experience of nature into buildings. She and her team are interested in how building management systems can be extended beyond providing energy savings, thermal comfort, and security to support and maintain a broader set of human wellbeing outcomes while preserving occupant privacy.

Billington received her B.S.E. in Civil Engineering & Operations Research with high honors from Princeton University in 1990. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study civil engineering at the ETH-Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in 1991. She received her M.S. (1994) and Ph.D (1997) in structural engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Billington was Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University from 1997-2002. 

Architect, writer and educator

Her books, Nesting: Body, Dwelling Mind (2011), Mind in Architecture: Neuroscience, Embodiment and the Future of Design with Juhani Pallasmaa (2015) and Architecture is Verb (2021) are among the first works to engage in dialogue between architecture and the cognitive sciences. She was the founding president of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture Board of Governors. She is adjunct professor in Architecture, Design and Media Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark, teaches and is a member of the scientific board of Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design (NAAD) at the University of Venice, is a member of ANFA’s Advisory Board, and holds the architecture chair of the Moving Boundaries Collective. 

Head of Delos Labs and an Executive Vice President at Delos, a wellness real estate and technology company headquartered in New York City

As the creator of the WELL Building Standard, Delos develops products, programs and solutions that transform our environments into vehicles for health, well-being, performance, and resilience. Jie leads the research team to support product innovations and market strategies. He also teaches in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

His research focuses on Human-building Interactions, including total building performance, occupant behavior in buildings, sensing and controls in buildings, health, comfort, and productivity of building occupants, as well as building energy efficiency and sustainability. Jie received his Ph.D. in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Theodore L. DeWeese is interim dean of the medical faculty and CEO at Johns Hopkins Medicine. DeWeese is the Sidney Kimmel Professor of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences, and is Professor of Oncology and Urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His areas of clinical expertise include prostate cancer, radiation oncology and urological oncology.

DeWeese earned his M.D. from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He completed his residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, serving as chief resident, and performed a laboratory research fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute. He has served on numerous committees and boards including as President and Chair of the Board for the American Society for Radiation Oncology. He also serves on committees for the American Association for Cancer Research and was appointed by the National Academy of Sciences as a scientific counselor for the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan. He has received numerous awards and honors, including several teaching awards from Johns Hopkins.

Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Director of the Lab for Socio-material Architectures

Sean directs the Lab for Socio-material Architectures, and is the director of the Master of Science in Digital Material Technologies (DMT). Ahlquist is a member of the Cluster in Computational Media and Interactive Systems – connecting architecture with the fields of material science, computer science, and performing arts technology. His work addresses architecture’s pressing need to leverage the techniques of computational design and technologies for constructing material systems towards generating inclusionary spaces, particularly regarding communities identifying as disabled. 

In 2020, Ahlquist received the ACADIA Innovative Research Award of Excellence for connecting material expertise with applications to enhance social opportunities for communities often underserved by the field of architecture. Ahlquist also teaches across the full range of academic programs – UG, MArch, MSc and Ph.D. – at the College of Architecture. Ahlquist holds a BA in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and a MArch from the Architectural Association – Emergent Design and Technologies Program in London. He continues his Ph.D. research with the Institute for Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart.

Senior Partner at Farrow Partners Architects

Tye Farrow, FRAIC, BArch, MArchUD, M.Neuro.Appl.Arch.Des., OAA, MAIBC, AIA Assoc, LEED AP is Senior Partner at Farrow Partners Architects. Working at the intersection of architecture and neuroscience, Farrow has pioneered tackling how what we create either gives or causes health. With award-winning projects around the globe that enact salutogenic design – design that actively incites health – he is the first Canadian architect to have earned a Master of Neuroscience Applied to Architecture (University of Venice IUAV), and has a Master of Architecture in Urban Design (Harvard University), and a BArch degree (University of Toronto).In his first book, to be published in the fall of 2023, titled Constructing Health: An Exploration of Generous Architecture: Through the Neurological, Psychological, and Emotional Benefits of Enriched Environments, Farrow further explores these issues, and how the built environment can be used to create the conditions where we flourish. He is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, a registered architect with the Ontario Association of Architects, and the Architectural Institute of British Columbia, and a faculty member of the University of Venice IUAV, Master of Neuroscience Applied to Architecture program.

Committee Chair
IAM Lab Founder and Executive Director
Co-Director of the NeuroArts Blueprint

Susan Magsamen is the Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) Center for Allied Neuroaesthetics, a pioneering initiative from the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her body of work lies at the intersection of brain sciences and the arts – and how our unique response to aesthetic experiences can amplify human potential. Magsamen is the author of the Impact Thinking model, an evidence-based research approach to accelerate how we use the arts to solve problems in health, well-being, and learning. In addition to her role at IAM Lab, she is an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and serves as co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint initiative in partnership with the Aspen Institute.

The author of eight books, Susan’s newest book with Random House is Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, written with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Hardware at Google. It is a journey through the science of neuroaesthetics that offers proof of how our brains and bodies are transformed when we participate in the arts and aesthetic experiences, and how this knowledge can improve our physical and mental health, help us learn and flourish, and build stronger communities.

Committee Member
IAM Lab Director of Outreach and Education

Karen Alexander has worked in program management, research, and communications across a wide range of education issues at local, state and federal levels. Her areas of expertise include PreK-12 education, social-emotional learning (SEL), and the intersections between neuroscience and mental health.

Prior to joining the International Arts + Mind Lab, Karen served as program director for BrainFutures, a national nonprofit formed to assess and advance the practical application of neuroscience research to improve human outcomes. She has also worked with the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers (now the Maryland Philanthropy Network), Baltimore Community Foundation, Communities in Schools of North Carolina, Urban Institute, and ZERO TO THREE State Policy Center.

Karen holds an M.P.A. (Master of Public Administration) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Honors B.A. in Sociology from Brown University. She was also selected as a fellow in the Children’s Defense Fund Emerging Leaders Project.

Committee Member
Author and Architecture Critic

Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Ph.D. and former Harvard professor, writes about architecture, landscape, and cities and their effect on human health and well-being. Her Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives (HarperCollins; also published in Chinese, Russian, and Korean) won a Nautilus Book Award in 2017 for its contribution to social and environmental justice, and Goldhagen was an opening-night Spotlight speaker at the AIA National Convention that same year.

A frequent keynote speaker, Goldhagen has won numerous awards and grants (including three from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts) for her criticism and writing on modern and contemporary architecture and landscapes, with an emphasis on their psychological and cognitive effects on people. She has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, served as Contributing Editor for Art in America and Architectural Record, and was The New Republic’s Architecture Critic for nearly a decade. Goldhagen also has had a distinguished academic career with scholarly publications that include Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism (Yale University) and Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture (co-edited with Réjean Legault, MIT Press) as well as numerous essays and reviews in premier architecture- and art-historical journals.

Committee Member
Architect and Founding Board Member and Former President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA)
Visiting Scholar and Research Collaborator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Frederick Marks, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Six Sigma Green Belt, is a Visiting Scholar and Research Collaborator at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, C.A., where he is associated with the Regulatory Biology laboratory and The Vision Center laboratory. Marks has been a licensed architect for over 30 years and has a planning & design specialty in healthcare and laboratory science facilities. He holds degrees in architecture and business administration with a major in real estate & urban land economics. Marks is a founding Board member and former President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) in San Diego, C.A.. He is a former national American Institute of Architects (AIA) Board Knowledge Committee member, advisor to the national AIA Research Summits, and past President of a local AIA chapter. Marks has been an advisor to the National Institute of Building Sciences and Delos WELL Living Laboratory. He currently advises the national ASHRAE Standing Guideline Project Committee on indoor environmental quality, International Child Art Foundation, Wright-Ingraham Institute, and the International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics.

Committee Member
Architect and Founder of Reddymade, lecturer at the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture

Suchi Reddy founded Reddymade in 2002 with an approach to design that privileges the emotional quality of human engagement and experience through spatial and artistic interactions. She is dedicated to celebrating diversity and equality, as well as addressing the economic, social, environmental, and cultural impacts of her work on both the user and the planet. Reddy teaches at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. She was the 2022 Walton Critic at the Catholic University of America, and the Plym Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois School of Architecture, Champaign–Urbana in 2019, where her work focused on contemporary architectural experience through the lens of neuroaesthetics, neurophenomenology, and sensory design.

Reddy has presented and lectured on the firm’s work at numerous venues including The Salk Institute for the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture’s annual conference, the University of Illinois, and the University of Wisconsin. She sits on the board of the Design Trust for Public Space, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Madame Architect; and she is a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors at Detroit Mercy School of Architecture + Community Development.

Committee Member
Vice President of Hardware Design at Google

Ross and her team created the design language for the Google hardware products that launched in 2017, winning over 240 design awards over the last three years. Previously, she held executive positions ranging from head of product design and development to chief marketing officer and president of several companies, including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach, Mattel, Bausch & Lomb, Old Navy, and Gap. Also a jewelry designer, Ross’s metal work in jewelry design is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Ross draws on her background in wide-ranging fields including sound therapy, quantum physics, psychology, and play. One of her most notable innovations is Project Platypus, an experimental design initiative where a core team develops a new brand in an enriched environment over three months; the model has been adopted by Mattel (where she was formerly head of innovation) and Procter & Gamble (on whose design board she served). She is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us with Susan Magsamen.