The list of speakers may be amended according to the evolution of topics and include faculty from a cross-section of academic fields. At the time of writing, these speakers have agreed to speak with the seminar and will speak to the seminar in the order given here.
- Tim Cunningham, DrPH, MSN, RN - an Assistant Professor of Nursing, an Assistant Professor in the drama department, and director of the Compassionate Care Initiative - earned a BA in English from the College of William and Mary, worked as a professional actor and teacher, then joined the CNL program at the University of Virginia. After earning an MSN from UVA, he worked as a pediatric and adult trauma/emergency nurse while also serving as executive director of Clowns Without Borders, USA, work that took him around the world, including to post-earthquake Haiti where a documentary film "Send in the Clowns" featured him and his colleagues. Tim completed a doctorate in public health in 2016 at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in the department of population and family health.
- Eliza Montgomery and Don Weinreich, Ennead Architects will informally discuss their work on an 2015 AIANY Honor award-winning project and collaboration between Ennead Lab, Stanford University and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, exploring the process of planning, building and operating refugee settlements, with the goal to nurture mutually beneficial relationships among refugees and host communities alike, all with an eye towards durable solutions and rational exit strategies. Note that this event includes a public lecture in Campbell Hall Thursday, February 7, 5 pm, and a private breakfast with the seminar in the Bishop Conference Room the morning of February 8, at 8:30 pm.
- Professor Jenny Roe, PhD is the first Mary Irene DeShong Professor of Design and Health and the Director of the Center of Design and Health with a multi-disciplinary background in design and environmental psychology. She is building new trans-disciplinary research collaborations between designers and public health professionals to address the global health challenges of the 21stcentury including obesity, cardiovascular disease and stress. She currently offers courses for the School in Healthy Cities and Environmental Psychology. Formerly, she was Senior Research Leader in Human Wellbeing and Behaviour Change for the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) where she worked with environmental scientists and health professionals to explore how best to build sustainable, resilient and healthy cities across the globe. Jenny is an Environmental Psychologist whom explores the interactions between people and their environment, from micro settings (i.e. a room or individual building scale or even submarines in the case of one recent project) through to neighbourhoods and macro settings that include cities, whole cultures and geographies.
- Professor of Landscape Architecture Reuben Rainey, PhD, has taught in the School of Architecture for 34 years and is a former chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. His present courses focus on the design of various types of healthcare facilities. As Co-Director of the School of Architecture's Center for Design and Health he is also engaged in a number of research projects centering on the design of patient-centered medical facilities and healthy neighborhoods and cities. A former professor of religious studies at Columbia University and Middlebury College, he entered the field of landscape architecture in mid-career. His publications cover a wide range of topics, including Italian Renaissance Gardens, 19th and 20th century urban parks, and the work of 20th-century American landscape architects. His co-authored book on the garden of the Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer received an honor award from the American Society of Landscape Architects. A documentary filmmaker as well, he co-produced the PBS seriesGardenStory, depicting the way gardens improve the lives of individuals and their communities. A recipient of five teaching awards, he is also a member of the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Having recently completed an essay on Lawrence Halprin's FDR Memorial, he is currently at work on a book on the modernist landscape architect Robert Royston and a study of the design features of an innovative cancer hospital at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
- Claire Antone Payton Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Research Associate & Lecturer, Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies. Dr. Payton's dissertation is on “The City and the State: Construction and the Politics of Dictatorship in Haiti,” Duke University. Her research, funded in part by a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship, examined the explosive urban growth fueled by rural-to-urban migration and the consolidation of state power.Drawing on extensive archival research, she examined the rise and fall of the dictatorship through its relationship to the shifting built environment of the capital. She tracks the creation, destruction, and management of material and abstract urban spaces—from airports and aquifers to the political economy of cement. Her analysis of these sites shows how the daily politics of authoritarianism were infused with the dynamics of rapid demographic and geographic change. The study brings to light the previously-unknown architects, planners, developers, investors, and local and international officials who enacted, contested, and revised the dictatorship’s ideological visions and pragmatic imperatives. In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake her scholarship is about the spiritual dimensions of survival narratives. In other research she has referred to oral histories to write about relationship stresses and sexual violence in the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camps.
- Harriet Kuhr, Executive Director IRC (International Rescue Committee), Charlottesville, earned her BA in Anthropology and French from the University of Virginia. Kuhr joined the Peace Corps early in her career serving in the Congo (formerly Zaire). Prior to taking her present position in April 2010, she was the Manager of Resettlement Services with the IRC in Atlanta. Her previous professional experience includes more than 20 years working in the field of international cultural exchange.The International Rescue Committee provides opportunities for refugees, asylees, victims of human trafficking, survivors of torture, and other immigrants to thrive in America. Each year, thousands of people, forced to flee violence and persecution, are welcomed by the people of the United States into the safety and freedom of America. These individuals have survived against incredible odds. The IRC works with government bodies, civil society actors, and local volunteers to help them translate their past experiences into assets that are valuable to their new communities. In Charlottesville and other offices across the country, the IRC helps them rebuild their lives.
- Associate Professor of Architecture John Comazzi's teaching, research, and scholarship focus is on the following areas: mid-century Modern architecture and design; design theory and criticism; architecture photography; the design of active learning environments for PK-12 education; design for healthcare environments; and design-build practices for community development. He is the author a monograph on Balthazar Korab, one of the most prolific and celebrated architecture photographers of the Modern era (Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography, Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), and is currently writing a monograph on the Miller House and Gardens in Columbus, IN (forthcoming from Princeton Architectural Press, 2019). Professor Comazzi joined the faculty in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia in the Fall of 2017 as the Director of the Design Thinking Concentration. Hired as part of the University's "Cluster Hiring Initiative," Professor Comazzi has partial appointments in the School of Nursing and the Curry School of Education where he collaborates on interdisciplinary teaching, research, and curriculum development.
- Noah Myung is the Director of the Center for Leadership Simulation and Gaming and an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.He is an experimental and behavioral economist with research interests in game theory, organizational economics, and financial economics. His current research deals with equilibrium selection in coordination games as well as information sharing between competitors. In addition, his Department of Defense research investigates on improving efficiencies in retention, compensation, and assignments. As a market design problem for retention, he has designed various ways of combining non-monetary incentives with monetary compensation in a reverse auction format that reduces cost for the DoD while improving social welfare.