The list of speakers may be amended according to the evolution of topics. They include faculty and other experts from a diverse range of disciplines and with signficant international experience, similar to the guest speakers from 2018, 2019 and 2020. They are listed below in the order that they will speak with the seminar.
- The Rev. Viktoria Parvin is a Lutheran pastor currently serving at Saint Mark Lutheran Church in Charlottesville VA. She was born in Budapest, Hungary, where she studied at the Lutheran Seminary at Budapest, participated and led youth camps, preached in small village churches. She received her Master of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Her forming experiences were working with the Night Ministry and homeless in Chicago, chaplaincy at a nursing home in Upstate New York, completing many units of Clinical Pastoral Education and supervisory education and travelling back to Hungary to help Syrian refugees at the height of the crisis. This article St. Mark Lutheran’s new pastor fought the odds describes her unusual story: "St. Mark’s is one of only two Lutheran churches in Virginia that have the “reconciling in Christ” status, according to Marbury. “That means that we not only accept people from the LGBT community, but we affirm them. We’re not in the business of trying to change them, but we accept them for who they are. In looking for a new pastor, we needed someone who wholeheartedly believed in that mission. Viktória Parvin fit that bill.”
- Grace Aaraj is currently a visiting Assistant Professor and Spatial Justice Fellow at the University of Oregon presently focused on accessibility and sustainability. She recently served on the faculty of Beirut Arab University, Lebanon. Her early research involved rethinking architectural education through public interest design. She is a partner in a Savage Foundation for International Relations and Peace grant on adaptive refugee housing (with Earl Mark and others). She’s participated in setting public policy for urban pocket gardens and a campaign to reopen Beirut’s largest park as a post-war reconciliation public space.She has served on the Fulbright Scholarship National Selection Committee and as Director of Communications for the Fulbright Alumni Association of Lebanon, and has mentored students in workshops for city-dwellers under the DIY Cities series during the Venice Biennale, as well as Amman, and Beirut Design Weeks. Ms. Aaraj has a Bachelor of Architecture from Institut des Beaux-Arts in Beirut and a Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon under a Fulbright. Her Master’s thesis on shelters of refugees won the 3MT Statewide public’s choice award. Her team’s design for a clinic in Jacmel-Haiti won the first prize in the international competition and was developed and built with the support of Portland-based firms. She is the recipient of the Japanese Ministry of Education Scholarship to take part in redesigning Nakano-Ku for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. She has worked in the Honolulu-based company G70 on hospitality awarded competitions and built projects through which she was influenced by the Hawaiian value of righteousness: Pono. Grace co-founded ArchiBuild, a Beirut-based practice working on a small community and private projects
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Phoebe Goodwin, Architect, Site Planner and Shelter Offices, UNHCR. This bio is taken from an article published on the https://www.unrefugees.org.au/our-stories web site. "Over the past six years, Australian architect Phoebe Goodwin has worked to shelter refugees and displaced people fleeing violence and conflict. Through her work as a Site Planner and Shelter Officer with UNHCR, Phoebe has seen the resilience and innovation of refugees who are determined to rebuild their lives. 'It never ceases to amaze me that in every humanitarian operation it is the refugees who spearhead improvements to their shelters,' Phoebe says “Especially in terms of their ability to construct improvised homes with such personalised design flair and ingenuity.” In Jordan's Za’atari refugee camp, home to around 80,000 Syrian refugees, families have modified their prefabricated containers to create homes. 'It never ceases to amaze me that in every humanitarian operation it is the refugees who spearhead improvements to their shelters' ... Today, Phoebe works for UNHCR in Mexico, where she is expanding shelter accommodation, conducting renovations and repairs and installing roof-mounted solar panels to reduce electricity costs. 'All people, not just humanitarians, can bring compassion and empathy to a crisis situation,' she says. 'I am passionate about encouraging and facilitating independence and fostering self-worth.'
- Ellen M. Bassett is a Professor in Urban and Environmental Planning and the Chair of the department. Her areas of research interest and expertise are land use planning and law, climate change planning, health and the built environment, and international development. She is particularly interested in community decision-making around land and natural resources, including understanding how different societies and cultures create institutions (like property rights systems or policies) for their management. Her research focuses on access to land and housing for the urban poor and seeks to reform the planning framework for land and natural resources that perpetuates societal inequities and deleterious environmental outcomes.
- Logman Arja, Lecturer in Architecture, UC Berkeley. Arja’s research focuses on RURALISM and RURAL ARCHITECTURE. He is thoroughly examining responsive systems and disruptive approaches to re-valorize the rural economy. He introduces RURALISM not in opposition to URBANISIM, but rather an equivalent field that he believes is worthy of consideration and that is often overlooked in our architectural discourse. Arja is also working to advance earth architecture and ceramic production via additive manufacturing technology in rural communities and contexts. Currently, he is leading efforts to adopt the technology of additive manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa with a long-term goal of producing sustainable housing solutions and rural micro-infrastructures as well as low-tech solutions. Arja has won numerous awards for his scholarly and creative works, including the Design for Spatial Justice Fellowship and Visiting Faculty at the University of Oregon, the John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship, the MasterCard Foundation Scholarship at UC Berkeley, Rondine Cittadella della Pace Fellowship - Italy, and the Fulbright Scholarship. Logman earned a BSc. from the University of Juba, Sudan, an MSc. from CCNY, New York, and an M. Arch from UCBerkeley.
- 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.
- Kory C. Russel is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. Kory teaches courses on sustainable and human-centered design, courses on water, sanitation and public health, as well as a course in Environmental Studies. His primary research focuses on planning, designing, and implementing sustainable water and sanitation (WASH) services in low- and middle-income countries. He currently services as the Chair of the Container Based Santiation Alliance (CBSA). He has conducted extensive research internationally including in Haiti and Mozambique. He also spent 3 years in Mozambique serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. Russel earned a BS, 2003; MES, 2005, Taylor University; MS, 2013, Ph.D.,2019, in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University. This bio is excerpted from his UO faculty web site.
- Professor Fern R. Hauck, MD, Fern R. Hauck, MD, MS, FAAFP is Spencer P. Bass, MD Twenty-First Century Professor of Family Medicine, Professor of Public Health Sciences, and Director of Research and Faculty Development and of International Family Medicine Clinics in the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Her expertise is global health and caring for refugees. She started the International Family Medicine Clinic in 2002, which serves the refugee population of Charlottesville. She also worked in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Carribian and held the position of refugee camp doctor for a year in Thailand for refugees fleeing Cambodia. Dr. Hauck's primary research focuses on sudden unexpected infant death, including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). She has studied risk factors for SIDS and other unexpected infant deaths, especially focusing on African-American and other minority communities. She has also studied bedsharing practices cross culturally and preventive strategies, such as pacifier use. An important theme of Dr. Hauck's research is eliminating disparities in health services and outcomes. She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on SIDS and is an advisor to several other organizations and federal agencies that focus on infant health and safety. Dr. Hauck was recently profile in the Daily Progress, "Dozen: Dr. Hauck created a model for serving area's refugees", article by Katherine Knott, 2.2.2020.
- Amanda Nguyen, Ph.D., M.A. is an Assistant Professor of Education on the research faculty at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. She is faculty affiliate of the Youth-Nex Center. Prior to her current appointment, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with Youth-Nex in Human Services at the Curry School. She holds a doctorate in public mental health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Denver. Her primary research interests focus on partnering with community organizations to deliver and evaluate culturally appropriate mental and behavioral health programs for young people in low-resource settings. Her work leverages both qualitative and quantitative approaches to examine risk and protective factors, identify and describe psychosocial problems, validate assessment instruments, and evaluate interventions. Past work has included cross-cultural examination of peer victimization and psychosocial outcomes, health promotion for Latino children, scale-up of a mental health counseling program in Iraq, and qualitative assessment of psychosocial problems in Chechnya. She currently collaborates on multiple research initiatives including cross-cultural measurement of school climate, scientific evaluation of psychosocial support programs in humanitarian settings, and RCTs of interventions to reduce aggression among U.S. middle school students and to treat mental health problems of children affected by conflict in Myanmar.