Alex Hammerschlag is a co-founder of The Effectus Group, the New York- and Texas-based owner’s representative and project management company. He has built a career managing large-scale projects such as Kimbell Art Museum’s Piano Pavilion and the Grace Farms Foundation.
Working from the ground up, Alex oversees the selection of architects, engineers, and contractors while carefully crafting, managing, and administering budgets and schedules to enable team members to work at their most effective and efficient. Prioritizing collaboration, Alex has worked with clients, architects, and builders to complete over $800 million in completed construction projects. His decade of experience includes multi-family residential, historic landmark restoration, and legacy projects.
Alex holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Lehigh University and previously worked for the Paratus Group in New York City
For over twenty years, Diana Reyna has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to communities across the Greater New York Area through government service and advocacy. She is founding principal at Diana Reyna Strategic Consulting, LLC. At DRS Consulting, clients are able to tap into the extensive and vast network of relationships cultivated in the public and private sectors. At DRS Consulting, success is achieved when conscientious goals, an ethical responsibility to clients, and to the communities impacted are met. Previously, Reyna was Senior Partner at Athena Consulting Group Inc., a full-service government relations, public engagement, strategic communications, and business development firm.
Diana Reyna is the former Deputy Brooklyn Borough President for Brooklyn (2014–17), and a former New York City Council Member for the 34th Council District (2001–13). During her tenure, as Deputy Brooklyn Borough President, Reyna advocated for the over 2.6 million residents of New York City’s most diverse borough. Reyna was the first Dominican American woman elected to public office in New York State. As a New York City Council Member representing the 34th Council District, Reyna demonstrated an outstanding commitment to communities across her district in Brooklyn and Queens. She garnered citywide attention for her efforts in championing affordable housing, economic development, improving equity in education, park space, waste and environmental justice as well as expanding youth and senior services.
Sebastian is a licensed architect with extensive design and construction experience. Prior to founding Tankhouse, he was an Associate Partner at Foster + Partners New York, where he led the design and project management of over 3 million square feet of residential, commercial, and cultural projects across North and South America.
In 2014, Sebastian co-founded Tankhouse, a Brooklyn-based real estate development firm. Tankhouse is driven by the belief that building cities should be done locally, with transparency, accountability, and passion. The firm is committed to creating better urban solutions through design excellence and process-driven collaboration. Its team combines expertise in architecture, urban design, finance, construction, management, and education, delivering projects that enhance the quality of life and the fabric of the city.
Sebastian earned his Master of Architecture from the University of Buenos Aires (2002) and a degree in Real Estate Development from New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. He has taught at the University of Buenos Aires and the Boston Architectural College, and he is frequently invited as a guest critic at leading architecture schools, including Yale, Columbia, Cornell, and Cooper Union.
A longtime resident of the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn, Sebastian is deeply engaged in the intersection of community, design, and urban growth. He is particularly interested in advancing the quality of public space as a central part of urban life, and in ensuring that new development contributes positively to the character and inclusiveness of the neighborhood. Sebastian actively works to engage the Gowanus community in the changes the area is undergoing, advocating for approaches that balance growth with sustainability, cultural vitality, and social equity. His projects reflect a commitment not only to architecture and development, but also to the public realm and the collective urban experience.
Thomas Yu is the Executive Director of Asian Americans For Equality (AAFE), a 50-year old community development organization serving the 1.3 million New Yorkers of Asian descent, and all of those in need regardless of background. Through his leadership, AAFE has achieved development of over 1,200 units of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, provided crucial social services to over 35,000 individuals annually, assisted more than 10,000 small business entrepreneurs with over $70 million of direct capital, and aided 5,000 first time homebuyers in achieving their American dream through counseling and access to $250 million in sustainable home mortgages. Thomas also leads AAFE’s grassroots policy advocacy, urban planning and infrastructure capital investment in AAPI and other communities, with a goal of advancing community revitalization through local arts and space activation.
Thomas has served on various mayoral task forces and was a long-time member of Manhattan’s Community Board #3, specifically on the Parks, Waterfront Development, Landmarks and Housing committees. Thomas is a director on the boards of Hester Street Collaborative and the Van Alen Institute, NYC non-profits which leverage architecture and design to help residents become civically engaged in community planning. Thomas sits on the New Market Tax Credit community advisory boards of Low Income Investment Fund and NYC Economic Development Corporation, and the community advisory boards of Valley Bank and Santander. He also was the past board co-chair of National CAPACD. Thomas received a Bachelor’s Degree in Government from Harvard University and a Masters in Urban Planning from the New York University Wagner School of Public Service.
Katie Swenson is a design leader, writer, and educator renowned for her work at the intersection of architecture, equity, and public life. She is a Senior Principal at MASS Design Group, where she leads the Advocacy team. Her work explores how critical design practice can promote economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthier communities. With over 20 years of experience in both the theoretical and practical applications of design thinking, Katie is also a sought-after speaker on the role of architecture in building just and vibrant communities.
A prolific writer, Katie is the author of Design with Love: At Home in America and In Bohemia: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Kindness, both published in 2020. She co-authored Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a Housing Development Model with William Morrish and Susanne Schindler, and contributed to Activist Architecture: Philosophy and Practice of Community Design and Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. In 2021, she received the AIA Award for Excellence in Public Architecture.
Before joining MASS, Katie served as Vice President of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, where she led the Enterprise Rose Fellowship—first as a fellow, then as its director, growing it into a national platform for emerging leaders in community design. She also founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center.
Katie teaches at both the Parsons School of Design at The New School and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and lectures widely on affordable housing, sustainable development, and the role of design in civic life. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia. In 2019, she was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
As the design voice of impact and change, Kia Weatherspoon, NCIDQ, ASID, has spent the last 15 years defying every design stereotype. The most damaging: interior design is a luxury reserved for a few. Her voice, advocacy for Design Equity™, and design practice have shifted the narrative, making interior design a standard for all. Kia is challenging the lack of these standards in economically challenged communities. Her presence and leadership have created ripples, prompting housing developers, agencies, and industry partners to not just take notice of her work – but to do better.
As an advocate and educator in business leadership, equity, and diversity, Kia has been recognized by Interior Design Magazine as a HiP Design for the Greater Good – Small Firm and selected as a GlobeSt.com Real Estate Forum 2020 Woman of Influence. She was honored as part of the 40 under 40 classes for both Washington Business Journal and BD+C Magazine. She also received the International Interior Design Association Luna Textile/ Anna Hernandez Visionary Award and the CREW DC Raise Up Your Voice Award.
For over a decade Kia has led her firm, Determined by Design, in creating elevated equitable design outcomes for over 3,500 hundred families, 25 communities, and designed over 165,000 sq.ft of interior spaces for affordable and low-income housing. Communities where the average median income was below $35,000/year per family. Communities that mirrored her, with 95% of the residents being black and/or of color. Kia believes Interior Design should be in service to all people, so every person and community is uplifted by the spaces they inhabit. No matter the project type, her focus is elevating communities—a path that requires advocacy and empathy!
Carol E. Rosenthal specializes in land use and development at Fried Frank. She has guided developers, businesses, and nonprofit institutions in some of New York City’s most significant development projects and through numerous discretionary land use approvals. She also advises on city and state public-private initiatives, housing, transportation, and other development, and regularly represents clients in the transfer of development rights, government acquisitions, and turnkey developments. In addition to her legal practice, she has served on the executive committee of the Citizens Budget Commission; the Advisory Board for Cityland, a publication of The Center for New York City Law of New York Law School; and the board of the Citizen’s Housing and Planning Committee.
R. May Lee is the President of the Olin College of Engineering. Formerly, as Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer for Institutional Impact at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), she guided the development and implementation of the Institute’s next 10-year strategic plan. Prior to joining RPI, she was a partner at The Seelig Group (TSG), a family office, where she focuses on incubating new companies in new media, entertainment, marketing, and technology—combining her background in finance and law (Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Federal Reserve Bank of New York) and as an entrepreneur and educator. May previously spent ten years as a leader in higher education where she led two groundbreaking initiatives: the founding of NYU Shanghai and ShanghaiTech. May began her career in China and has three decades of experience in the private and public sector, amassing a deep understanding of the cross-cultural aspects of innovation ecosystems in China, Europe, and the U.S. She currently serves as a Lifetime Trustee at the NYU School of Law, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Treasurer for the Guild of Future Architects, as well as senior advisor to a number of start-ups in Shanghai. May is recognized as a global leader in innovation and international education, and speaks frequently on these topics.
Fueled by a career-long passion to make a tangible difference in the way cities work for people and the environment, Mark Johnson co-founded Civitas in 1984 and has guided its growth into an international leader in landscape architecture and urban design ever since.
Mark is respected globally for his impact on cities, on design education, and on the role that landscape architects can play in leading communities through complex projects to successful results. His design process centers on asking questions, challenging assumptions, and seeking relationships between issues that others may not see. An exceptional listener, effective speaker, and empowering leader who inspires and guides team members to generate creative, innovative ideas, Mark is sought by clients and collaborators for his willingness to challenge urban issues that are rooted in economic, political, legal and social issues. His commitment to addressing these conditions and improving life in cities through the natural environment has resulted in the implementation of some of the most transformative projects in the country.
Mark has been a recognized thought leader and a regular lecturer at AIA, ASLA, APA and ULI events for decades. Passionate about education and lifelong learning, he frequently participates in issue-driven symposia around the world, including the International Academy of Design and Health, with whom he has lectured in North America, Europe and Asia on the role of community design in promoting public health. He serves on the board of the Brooklyn-based Van Alen Institute, which seeks to create equitable cities through community-led design. Mark has also contributed to numerous design juries for national awards and competitions; has chaired the editorial committee of Landscape Architecture Magazine; and is co-founder of the CEO Roundtable, an independent association of the leaders of top global landscape firms who meet biannually to identify trends and assess their impacts on the profession.
Claire Weisz, FAIA, Hon. FRAIC, Hon FASLA, is the founding partner of WXY, the New York City-based architecture, urban design, and planning firm that is globally recognized for its community-centered approach. WXY acts at every scale: from the intimacy of an interior to the complexity of a city, from the scale of a conversation to the scale of a generation, with memorable structures such as SeaGlass at The Battery, the Spring Street Salt Shed and Sanitation Garage, and the Rockaway Boardwalk to precedent-setting planning and urban design work. Claire’s belief in the importance of public space and dialogue in creating a regenerative, equitable and inclusive world is the driving force behind everything WXY does.
