Working Group for Sustainable Cities at Harvard University: Core Members

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Founding Members

Martha Schwartz
Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Martha Schwartz Partners, Principal, Lead Designer, RLA, ASLA, FRIBA

Martha Schwartz is a Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and teaches advanced design studios focusing on urban sustainability. She is also a Principal of Martha Schwartz Partners, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London. Her practice works internationally on a wide variety of project types and scales, focusing on developing sustainable strategies and public realm design. The practice is at the forefront of working collaboratively to develop sustainable strategies for new and regenerating cities. Schwartz has over 30 years of experience as a landscape architect and artist and has worked together with a variety of world-renowned architects. Schwartz is a co-founder for the Working Group for Sustainable Cities at Harvard, which is founded on the principle that cities are the fundamental unit of habitation that we need to influence, improve, learn from and foster, in order to “be more sustainable." She has lectured both nationally and internationally about the landscape, and her award-winning work has been featured extensively in publications as well as gallery and museum exhibitions.

Padraic Kelly
Managing Director, Happold Consulting International

Working Group for Sustainable Cities co-founder Padraic Kelly is International Director for Buro Happold.  He studied Engineering Science at Trinity College Dublin, followed by a Master’s Degree in Computers in Engineering Structures.  He joined Buro Happold in 1978, became a Director in 1992 and Managing Director in 1996. He held this key role until 2005 after which he became the practice's International Director. In 1989, Padraic established the Buro Happold office in Saudi Arabia and thereafter was resident director responsible for the Middle East and Asia until 1996. A Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Padraic has also been President of Europengineers since May 2006. In 2007 Padraic set up Happold Consulting Ltd and has been head of the company since. In addition, Padraic also holds the position of International Director for Buro Happold.

Core Harvard members

Alan Altshuler
Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning
Harvard University Graduate School of Design + Harvard Kennedy School

Alan Altshuler is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and the Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning. His teaching and research focus on urban politics, planning, and public investment. His course, Urban Politics, Planning, and Development is jointly offered by the Design and Kennedy Schools.

William Clark
Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development
Co-Director, Sustainability Science Program, Center for International Development
Harvard Kennedy School

William Clark is the Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Trained as an ecologist, his research focuses on the interactions of environment, development and security concerns in international affairs, with a special emphasis on the role of science and technology in shaping those interactions.

Harvey G. Cox, Jr.
Hollis Research Professor of Divinity
Harvard Divinity School

Harvey Cox is the Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard, where he began teaching in 1965, both at HDS and in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. An American Baptist minister, he was the Protestant chaplain at Temple University and the director of religious activities at Oberlin College; an ecumenical fraternal worker in Berlin; and a professor at Andover Newton Theological School. His research and teaching interests focus on the interaction of religion, culture, and politics. Among the issues he explores are urbanization, theological developments in world Christianity, Jewish-Christian relations, and current spiritual movements in the global setting, particularly Pentecostalism.

Gerald Frug
Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law
Harvard Law School

Gerald Frug, Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, specializes in Legal Problems of Local Governments, Legal Theory, Local Government Law, City and Local Government.  He is the author of City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation.

Toni Griffin
Adjunct Associate Professor Urban Planning
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Urban Planning and Design for the American City

Toni Griffin was recently hired by the City of Detroit to devise a city-wide “downsizing” regimen. Griffin also serves as an adjunct associate professor at Harvard University Graduate School of Design with 20 years of experience combining the practice of architecture, urban design and planning with the execution of innovative, large-scale, mixed-use urban redevelopment projects, and citywide and neighborhood planning strategies. Most recently, Griffin served as community director of development for Newark, New Jersey.

Spiro Pollalis
Professor of Design Technology and Management
Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Spiro Pollalis is a Professor of Design, Technology and Management at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he teaches design and development. His current research focuses on sustainability and quality of life in large-scale projects.

Nic Retsinas
Lecturer in Real Estate at the Harvard Business School
Lecturer in Housing Studies at the Graduate School of Design and Harvard Kennedy School
Director, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies

Nicolas “Nic” Retsinas is a Senior Lecturer in Real Estate at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses in housing finance and real estate in emerging markets.   Retsinas is also Director, Emeritus, of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, a collaborative venture of the Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Robert Sampson
Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences
Chairman of the Department of Sociology

Robert Sampson is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Senior Advisor in the Social Sciences at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He served as Chair of the Department of Sociology from 2005-2010. For the academic year 2010-2011 Sampson will be a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City. His general research interests include crime, the life course, neighborhood effects, and the social structure of the city.

Daniel P. Schrag
Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Director, Harvard University Center for the Environment

Daniel Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University, studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history. He has examined changes in ocean circulation over the last several decades, with particular attention to El Niño and the tropical Pacific. He has worked on theories for Pleistocene ice-age cycles including a better determination of ocean temperatures during the Last Glacial Maximum, 20,000 years ago. Dan also helped develop the Snowball Earth hypothesis, proposing that a series of global glaciations occurred between 750 and 580 million years ago that may have led to the evolution of multi cellular animals. Currently he is working with economists and engineers on technological approaches to mitigating future climate change.

John Spengler
Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation
Harvard School of Public Health

John “Jack” Spengler, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at the Harvard School of Public Health, studies environmental contaminants present in air, water, food and soil. The thrust of his research includes the assessment of population exposures that occur in homes, offices, schools and during transit, as well as in the outdoor environment.  His team is also investigating ways to promote improved air quality through sustainable development strategies.

Charles Waldheim
Professor of Landscape Architecture
Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture
Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Charles Waldheim, John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), teaches design studios at the intersection of landscape and contemporary urbanism. He offers the Pro-seminar in Landscape Architecture (GSD 3501) as well as lecture and seminar courses in the histories, theories, and contemporary practices of landscape architecture and urbanism.  Waldheim’s research focuses on landscape architecture in relation to contemporary urbanism. He coined the term landscape urbanism to describe emerging landscape design practices in the context of North American urbanism. He has written extensively on the topic and edited The Landscape Urbanism Reader (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). Citing the city of Detroit as the most legible example of urban industrial economy in North America, Waldheim is editor of CASE: Lafayette Park Detroit (Prestel / Harvard Design School, 2004) and co-editor, with Jason Young and Georgia Daskalakis, of Stalking Detroit (Barcelona: ACTAR, 2001).

Core Professionals

Bill Boler
Director, Underserved Markets, Business in the Community

Bill Boler is the Director of Property & Physical Regeneration for Business in the Community, U.K. Boler joined Business in the Community in March 2003 from the United States to work with the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now Communities and Local Government) to investigate the role of retail investment in England’s most deprived communities as a catalyst for regeneration. In the United States, Bill was Vice President for Community Investment at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), helping companies to integrate community investment into their business and CSR strategies for the benefit of both companies and community.  Prior to joining BSR he served as executive director of the Greater Harlem Housing Development Corporation from 1993-1998, during which time he worked to attract private investment to Harlem, NY.  Other positions have included time spent as Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Business Services and as Vice President of the city’s Public Development Corporation. Bill earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from Yale University and a Master’s Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Maurice Cox
Associate Professor, University of Virginia School of Architecture

Maurice Cox is an urban designer and architectural educator currently serving as an Associate Professor for the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture. He most recently served as Director of Design for the NEA where he presided over the largest expansion of direct grants to the design fields, oversaw the Governors’ Institute on Community Design, the Your Town Rural Institute, and the Mayors’ Institute on City Design. Cox developed the MICD Technical Assistance Workshops and assisted in the creation of the NEA’s MICD’s 25th Anniversary Initiative celebrating the program’s 25-year history of transforming communities through design. Cox served as a Charlottesville, Virginia City Councilor for six years before becoming the mayor from 2002-2004.

Philip Enquist
Partner in Charge of Urban Design and Planning, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

Philip Enquist, FAIA, is Partner in Charge of Urban Design and Planning at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) where he leads the urban design and planning studios for their Chicago office. His work is focused on the rebuilding of inner cities, their commercial centers and neighborhoods, the strengthening of the city infrastructure of streets, transit and parks, and the preservation of the natural environment. He collaborates closely with government agencies and community groups to shape the places we live and work by strengthening their physical, social, and intellectual infrastructure. In his work, Mr. Enquist strives to create the underlying structure for humane and rational habitats, workplaces, open spaces, and agricultural areas on a rapidly urbanizing planet. Over the last two decades, Mr. Enquist has directed development and redevelopment initiatives for college campuses, existing city neighborhoods, new cities, rural districts, downtown commercial centers, port areas, and in the case of Bahrain, master planning an entire nation. During his career, Mr. Enquist has collaborated closely with a wide cross-section of significant governmental and private planning entities. These include the cities of Shanghai, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Orlando; Harvard University; Bowdoin College; the Kingdom of Bahrain; and others. A key to Mr. Enquist’s work is his belief that long-term planning on urban, regional, and even national scales are both necessary and possible for the creation of a culture and ethic of sustainable development.

Mark Johnson
Founding Principal & President, Civitas, Inc.

Mark Johnson, Founding Principal, Civitas, Inc. Mark Johnson, FASLA, is a recognized thought leader and designer of policies, systems and landscapes that regenerate cities.  Mark has designed projects of every scale on several continents. He is widely regarded as a leading intellect and lecturer with deep knowledge and insights into how cities will become healthier and more sustainable in a global economy and culture.

Peter Steinbrueck
Founding Principal, Steinbrueck Urban Strategies, LLC

Peter Steinbrueck, Founding Principal, Steinbrueck Urban Strategies, LLC. In 2007 Peter Steinbrueck, FAIA, founded Steinbrueck Urban Strategies, LLC, a strategic consulting firm in the field of urban sustainability.  As a three-term councilor for the City of Seattle from 1997 to 2007, Steinbrueck led numerous legislative efforts to advance cutting-edge sustainable practices in areas of public policy, planning, and regulation, including land use and development; transportation and urban mobility; water resource management; municipal waste and recycling; housing and human services; parks, open space; and historic preservation.  In 1999, Steinbrueck won the “Young Architect Award” from the American Institute of Architects for public policy affecting housing, homelessness, civic design, historic preservation, and the environment.  In 2001 he received the Public Policy Award from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.  Steinbrueck has also been a visiting instructor at the University of Washington’s College of the Built Environments, and is a frequent speaker, commentator, and writer on the emerging framework for advancing urban sustainability.  Peter Steinbrueck received his bachelor degree in Government from Bowdoin College in 1979, and Master of Architecture degree from the University of Washington in 1988.  Most recently, Steinbrueck was named a Loeb Fellow, and has spent the academic year 2009-10 at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.  His research has focused on the “politics, planning, and best practices of urban sustainability.”

John van Nostrand
Founding Principal, planningAlliance

John van Nostrand is the founding principal of planningAlliance, as well as its sister practices rePlan and regional Architects. Over the past three decades, John has been the driving force behind the firms’ domestic and international planning and design practice. John has worked on a number of significant urban development projects throughout southern Ontario over his 30-year career. At the same time, he has worked in a wide range of developing countries on the planning, design and construction of new communities, ranging in size from 150 to 150,000 persons. John’s work has been recognized with a number of international and national awards, including the World Leadership Award for Town Planning, the Daniel Burnham Award, the World Habitat Award, and numerous Awards of Excellence from the Canadian Institute of Planners and Ontario Professional Planners Institute, and many City of Toronto Urban Design Awards. In 2004, John was awarded the Jane Jacobs Award for Ideas That Matter for his contribution to and advancement of social housing and urbanism. John graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1972 and is a Registered Professional Planner, a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, and a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He writes and lectures widely on urban planning and design in Canada and around the world.

WGSC Staff

Maggie Reid
Director of Information Technology and Communications