Katherine Chia FAIA is a founding principal of Desai Chia Architecture. Since 1996, she and her partner & husband, Arjun Desai, have established the firm’s reputation for authentic design, creating inspiring environments expressive of light, materials, and spaces that foster collaboration.  Desai Chia’s institutional, commercial, and residential projects have been published extensively and received many accolades including numerous AIA Design Awards, American Architecture Awards, Interior Design Best of Year Awards, and an AIA Institute Honor Award.  In 2025, Forbes named the firm one of the top 200 residential architecture firms in the US, and Architizer included the firm in their list of the top 100 US architecture firms.  Desai Chia Architecture also received the 2025 Architizer A+ Award for Best Small Firm of the Year (global). In 2019, ARCHITECT magazine ranked Desai Chia Architecture #19 in the United States for design excellence.  The book “The Women Who Changed Architecture” by Princeton Architectural Press included Katherine and the work of her firm in the chapter titled “Raising the Roof.”

Katherine grew up in New York State and Belgium.  She earned her Master of Architecture degree from M.I.T. and received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College. She is a board member at the Center for Architecture and the International Center of Photography, a trustee emerita of Amherst College, a Mead Art Museum Advisory Board member, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Thomas Robinson, FAIA, is the Founder of LEVER Architecture, a research-based design practice with offices in Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. LEVER is widely recognized for material innovation and pioneering work with Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT). His projects encompass first-of-their-kind timber buildings for clients such as The Nature Conservancy, adidas, and The Portland Museum of Art. In parallel with these built projects, the firm develops and tests next-generation building assemblies and sustainable tools, including a 10-story full-scale seismic test of a resilient timber tower at UC San Diego.

Selected projects include Portland State University’s Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design, two libraries for Multnomah County, a multi-building campus project for NBCUniversal, and 843 N Spring Street, a creative development and one of LA’s largest CLT and steel hybrid structures.

As Founding Partner at Krueck Sexton Partners, Mark is integral to the design and management of all the firms work. His dedication to design, detailing, and responsible project delivery ensures firm-wide quality and consistency of all projects. Whether designing a U.S. Embassy or reimagining an existing building, Mark brings both curiosity and experience to his work. He embraces the ideas of colleagues, investigates possibilities and engages with community, constantly evolving and advancing projects.

José Vargas-Hidalgo is an architect, urban designer, educator, and researcher whose work operates at the intersection of drawing practices, ecology, infrastructure, and urban transformation. He holds a Master in Architecture in Urban Design (MAUD) from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and is currently a professor and researcher at the University of Costa Rica.

His professional experience includes work with internationally recognized practices such as Foster + Partners in New York and London, Morphosis Architects and RoTo Architects in Los Angeles, and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris. Across these experiences, he contributed to projects of varying scales and complexities, developing a particular interest in multidisciplinary design processes, urban systems, and the relationship between architecture, landscape, and place.

José also collaborated with the Michael Sorkin Studio in New York and was part of the team behind House as a Garden, recipient of the Holcim Gold Award for North America, recognized for its innovative integration of environmental thinking, construction methodologies, and social impact.

He is Co-Director of Project for a Regional Landscape and Architecture (P.P.A.R.), an interdisciplinary practice working across architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. He is also a founding co-proponent and Urban Design Director of the Rutas Naturbanas Foundation, a nationally recognized initiative advancing ecological restoration, public space, and active mobility through a network of river corridors in the Greater Metropolitan Area of San José, Costa Rica.

His teaching, research, and professional work focus on how design can engage contemporary environmental challenges through the integration of infrastructure, ecology, and civic space, with particular attention to the evolving relationships between urbanization, ecology, and modes of representation.

Rocio Crosetto Brizzio is an Argentinian architect and educator, and co-founder of Balsa Crosetto Piazzi, an award-winning practice based in Córdoba, Argentina, and Boston, US.

Balsa Crosetto Piazzi works across commissions, public competitions, research, writing, and curatorial work. Their practice is defined by precise geometries and contextual sensitivity, with attention to the networks of materials, people, ecologies and knowledge that shape architecture.

Crosetto is currently the Pietro Belluschi Fellow at MIT Architecture. She has previously taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University, IUAV Venice, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Universidad Nacional de Asunción, and Universidad Andrés Bello.

Her academic work examines collective forms of construction, focusing on vernacular, popular, and Indigenous techniques in rural settlements across Argentina as material expressions of situated knowledge, collective organization, political agency, and aesthetic form.

Rocio received the League Prize for Young Architects + Designers 2025 from the Architectural League of New York, the 2026 Design Vanguard Award from the Architectural Record and was shortlisted for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale Début Award. Balsa Crosetto Piazzi’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Iberoamerican Biennial, the Latin American Biennial, among others.

Recent awarded and built projects include The House with a Tilted Roof, House and Quincho in Bialet, The Long House, Rural Restrooms and Traces, a pavilion at the 2025 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Crosetto holds a degree in Architecture from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina and a Master’s Degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, where she received the Dean’s Scholarship, the William Ware Prize for Excellence in Design, and the Saul Kaplan Fellowship.

Andrew Schachman, Director of Strategy and Design, is a curator, designer, artist, critic and educator, and the co-founder and co-director of Behar X Schachman.  After 20 years of architectural practice, Andrew co-founded and co-directs two non-profit organizations dedicated to research and the production of new models for art and design – exploring relationships between art, community, architecture, infrastructure, and public institutions: Floating Museum and Fieldwork Collaborative Projects.  As an artist his work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hyde Park Art Center.  As a curator and exhibition designer he was the Artistic Co-director for the 5th edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial titled This is a Rehearsal, the designer for Singing Stones, a site-specific exhibition by the Palais de Tokyo, and curator and designer of public art installations for Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Andrew is a Lecturer in Urban Design in the University of Chicago’s Department of Art History.  Born in New Jersey, Andrew received his undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago and received his Masters of Architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to establishing his own practice, Andrew designed and managed projects for Doug Garofalo, Carol Ross Barney, Perkins + Will, and The Office of Zaha Hadid.

I am a native Texan, born and raised in Vernon, TX.  Growing up in a small town, everybody seems to know everybody, which generates a strong sense of community.  Living in Dallas (1.3 million population) for the last 14 years, I’ve learned you have to find and build your own community.  Whether it be through church, work, social organizations, or professional ones, like AIA, you can find and build your community.

My architectural passion is doing K-12 education work.  As a Project Manager, I engage with the design, production and construction administration of a variety of school projects, ranging from classroom additions, and athletic stadiums to whole new campuses.  My small-town upbringing helps me to better serve our school districts, as many of them are similarly sized communities or rural areas.

Outside of work, I usually spend my free time watching movies or playing the occasional video game.  I’m also a huge Batman fan.  I like to say, “I’m getting older, but I’m not growing up!”

As Director of Sustainability and Interior Design Leader in GFF’s Faith + Community studio, Emily brings two decades of expertise to projects ranging from intimate 1,000-square-foot spaces to expansive 100,000-square-foot facilities. Her design approach seamlessly integrates sustainability with aesthetic excellence, developing thoughtful interior palettes, furniture selections, and innovative space planning solutions. Emily’s leadership extends beyond traditional design roles through her pioneering work in sustainable practices, including co-authoring GFF’s Black & Gold List—an initiative promoting environmentally conscious material selection. Her journey from exploring material composition to advocating for reduced carbon emissions reflects her commitment to creating spaces that benefit both occupants and the environment.

Ricardo Muñoz, AIA, is an award-winning architect and educator based in Dallas, Texas, where he serves as a Design Director at LPA Design Studios. Since 2012, he has also taught at the University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor in Practice, focusing on design studios as well as courses in BIM and Visualization.

Ricardo earned his architectural licensure after working in Paris, Boston, and Dallas—experiences that, along with his extensive travels throughout Europe and Latin America, continue to inform his approach to design.

Born in Costa Rica and traveling every summer to visit the country impressed upon Ricardo a deep respect for the relationship between the natural world and the built environment —an influence that remains central to his work today. An advocate for design excellence, he is also the founder of Architect on the Block, an online resource that highlights architecturally significant work across the Dallas–Fort Worth region.

Ricardo earned a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington.