2026 Design for Freedom Summit

Sharon Prince is the CEO and Founder of Grace Farms, a new kind of boundary-defying public space that advances good locally and globally. Prince commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa to design Grace Farms, which has become widely known as a global humanitarian and cultural center located in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Grace Farms is the platform for the Foundation and its interdisciplinary humanitarian mission to pursue peace through nature, arts, justice, community, faith, and Design for Freedom, a global new movement to eliminate forced labor from the building materials supply chain. The open, porous architecture of the River building at Grace Farms is embedded into 80 acres of natural biodiverse landscapes. The building, designed to break down barriers between people and sectors, invites all to pause and reflect, while also encouraging engagement with Grace Farms’ work, including advancing gender and racial equity, all of which leads to creating new outcomes.

Since opening, Grace Farms has garnered numerous prestigious awards for contributions to architecture, environmental sustainability, and social good, including the AIA National 2017 Architecture Honor Award and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize.

Grace Farms is pioneering a new form of philanthropic capitalism with a non-profit owned certified B Corp. Prince is the Co-Founder of Grace Farms Tea & Coffee, which offers coffees and teas that demonstrate what the Foundation advocates for: ethical and sustainable supply chains. Through our robust corporate-sponsorship program we’ve expanded the reach into global corporations including JPMorganChase, UBS, Sciame Construction, and Bloomberg. In addition, Grace Farms Tea & Coffee has also introduced its Wellness Teas into 26 Whole Foods Markets in 2024 alone, initializing public demand for ethical sourcing.
100% of the profits from Grace Farms Foods supports the Design for Freedom movement to eliminate forced labor from the building materials supply chain.

After recognizing a void in addressing exploitation in the building materials supply chain in late 2017, Prince launched Design for Freedom in 2020 with a first-of-its-kind publication, a nearly 100-page Report that provides analysis and data on how forced labor is embedded into the very foundations of our buildings. At the inaugural Design for Freedom Summit in 2022, Grace Farms also released the Design for Freedom Toolkit, a practical resource professionals use to implement ethical sourcing strategies into their practices. Prince also initiated the next iteration of the Design for Freedom Toolkit to further advance the international expansion of Design for Freedom. The Design for Freedom International Guidance & Toolkit, which includes contributions from more than a dozen leading international experts across the ecosystem of the built environment.
In addition, Prince has also expanded Design for Freedom internationally through accelerators in the UK, India, and Vietnam equipping public and private sector partners with the tools to address forced and child labor.

She has guest lectured about Design for Freedom and Grace Farms to universities and industry associations around the world. In recognition of this impactful work, Fast Company named her to its list of the Most Creative People in Business 2022: For Cleaning up Construction and the AIA NY and Center for Architecture recognized her with the NYC Visionary Award.
At the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, when countries around the world shut down, Prince converted Grace Farms into a humanitarian hub to address two emerging crises: the lack of PPE for frontline health care workers and soaring food insecurity. Under her leadership, Grace Farms became the largest supplier of PPE in the state, securing, donating, and delivering more than 2 million pieces of PPE within weeks to close the acute state-wide PPE gap. She also initiated a critical food emergency program that provided more than 150,000 wholesome meals to neighbors in need. For this humanitarian work, Prince received the CEO Forum’s Transformative CEO Award | Leading through Crisis.

Brigid Abraham is the Design for Freedom Senior Project Manager. To this role, she brings a duality of experience in both architecture and information science. Brigid uniquely combines her education and passion for architectural research to further the movement of Design for Freedom, eliminating forced labor in building materials supply chains.

Before joining Grace Farms, Brigid was the Director of Research at Pickard Chilton, a global design architect in New Haven, Connecticut. Brigid fostered a community of learning in the studio through research, education, and thought leadership. Prior to Pickard Chilton, Brigid worked in the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Division of the New York Public Library and in interior design for Eve Robinson Associates in Manhattan. She is a licensed architect in the state of New York and certified as a LEED Green Associate, WELL Accredited Professional and Fitwel Ambassador.

Brigid is a graduate of Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and a Master of Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. She serves as the Communications Chair for the Board of Directors of NOMA Connecticut.

Lindsay Baker is a movement leader, speaker, author, and podcast host working nationally and internationally to transform the building industry for a regenerative future. As CEO of Living Future, Lindsay advocates for a world where everyone lives in buildings that are safe, healthy, decarbonized, and affordable. 

A lifelong environmentalist and building scientist, Lindsay has spent her career leading and scaling impactful initiatives, partnerships, and programs across sectors. She was a Senior Fellow at RMI, taught at UC Berkeley, and serves as a board member and advisor to numerous nonprofits and climate tech startups, including The Clean Fight and SPUR. 

Prior to joining Living Future, she served as Global Head of Sustainability and Impact at WeWork, co-founded successful smart buildings start-up Comfy, worked with Google’s Real Estate Sustainability Team, and was a building science researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for the Built Environment. Her career began at the US Green Building Council developing early standards for the LEED Rating System.

Lindsay is a published author and frequent speaker on subjects including climate action, the regenerative building movement, and social impact in the building industry. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College and Masters Degree in Architecture and Building Science from UC Berkeley. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and now lives in Oakland, California with her partner and their many precious houseplants.

Architect Kyle Bergman founded the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) in 2008 and serves as its festival director. He has always recognized the strong connection between architecture and film and ADFF provides a unique opportunity to educate, entertain and engage people who are passionate about the world of architecture and design. Mr. Bergman also serves as vice president on the board of Pacific Rim Parks Organization whose mission is to use the process of designing and building parks as a tool to connect communities around the Pacific.

Kyle Bergman has been involved with design/build education since 1994 when he created and moderated an architectural lecture series about the design/build process for the Smithsonian Institute. An entrepreneur at heart, Mr. Bergman founded Alt Spec in 1999, a publishing company that produced a visual resource of unique and alternative products for architects and designers. He also produced a play entitled The Glass House, about the design and construction of two famous homes, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Phillip Johnson’s Glass House.

Kai-Uwe Bergmann is a Partner globally at BIG, bringing his expertise to proposals around the world, including work in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Working out of the New York office, Kai-Uwe coordinates with BIG’s five international offices, helping lead work in over 40 different countries. Licensed as an architect in the U.S. (sixteen states) and Canada (one province), Kai-Uwe most recently contributed to the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project (the BIG U), a resiliency plan that will protect 10 miles of Manhattan’s coastline. Additionally, his work expands to the exhibition and publication of BIG’s literary portfolio by way of Hot to Cold, Yes Is More, Formgiving, and the newest Culture book. He complements his professional work through teaching assignments at Pratt Institute and Georgia Tech. Kai-Uwe is also an AIA Fellow and past board member of the Van Alen Institute, and participates on numerous international juries and in lectures globally on the works of BIG.

Sustainability collaborator, facilitator, and visionary. Annie doesn’t just want to talk about sustainable impact, she wants to facilitate action to create large-scale, global change. She enables this market transformation through her role as President for mindful MATERIALs Inc.

Over the last decade, Annie has become a trusted executive leader in sustainability for corporate, government, and nonprofit entities. Annie offers a unique blend of business and technical expertise that compliments her over 15 years of sustainability marketplace experience. She knows a truly sustainable world will not be achieved by just one person. She is passionate in working with people and building relationships to catalyze sustainable change. Her expertise and experience allow her the ability to provide unparalleled strategic advice to quickly enhance and increase the robustness and productivity of various sustainability standards, certification organizations, businesses, and nonprofits with a personal mission to drive industry collaboration and acceleration of collective action to scale global impact reduction.

Luis C.deBaca is a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School. He led US government activities in the global fight against contemporary forms of slavery during the Obama administration. As Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, C.deBaca updated statutes created after the Civil War and through the 13th Amendment to develop the victim-centered approach to modern slavery that has become the global standard for combating human trafficking.

In the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ), C.deBaca investigated and prosecuted complex criminal cases, negotiated labor and human rights advances, and managed multimillion dollar grant portfolios combating slavery and sexual abuse. As one of the most decorated federal prosecutors in the US, he investigated and prosecuted cases of human trafficking, hate crimes, and police misconduct, as well as immigration, organized crime, and money laundering.

He built his litigation record into policy, incorporating the voices of victims, workers, and the advocacy community into decision making. As principal DOJ drafter of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act and a member of the team that negotiated the United Nations’ anti-trafficking protocol, he helped to enshrine the “3P” anti-trafficking approach of prevention, protection, and prosecution in US and international practice.

Following his prosecution career, he served as counsel to the House Committee on the Judiciary, where he handled issues of civil rights, immigration, and civil liberties, including revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the Obama administration, he served as director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons from 2009 to 2014 and as the director of the Justice Department’s Office for Sex Offender Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking from 2015 to 2017.

After retiring from government service, C.deBaca was a Senior Fellow of Modern Slavery at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and served as a lecturer in law at Yale Law School and lecturer of architecture at Yale School of Architecture. He also was a 2017-2019 Soros Open Society Human Rights Fellow focusing on worker-led social responsibility and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

C.deBaca’s teaching and research interests include criminal law, race and slavery, policing, immigration, national security, labor, Indian law, international law, and civil rights. Current projects include an inquiry into the imprint of current and historical forms of slavery and involuntary servitude on the built environment, re-thinking business practices that incentivize the use of forced labor, and preparatory work toward a national slavery memorial in Washington, DC.

Nina Cooke John’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Dwell, NBC’s Open House, the Center for Architecture’s 2018 exhibition, Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture and PBS NewsHour Weekend.

Born in Jamaica, Nina has always been inspired by the creativity she witnessed in her homeland: the art of people transforming everyday hardships and limitations into innovative solutions through multiple spheres of life. She imbues the spirit of transformation and innovation into every design project, from the structure of a home’s interior to the streetscape of a city block.

Nina began her professional career designing houses in Connecticut, Arizona and Virginia with the architecture firm Voorsanger and Associates. She went on to work on large cultural institutional projects like the New York Botanical Gardens master plan, the Clinton Library and the Biltmore Theater at Polshek Partnership (now Ennead).

Ambassador Cindy Dyer (ret.) is a human rights expert and lawyer with more than 30 years of experience working at the local, national, and international levels.  Ambassador Dyer currently serves as the Chief Program Officer at the McCain Institute leading the design and delivery of the Institute’s Human Rights & Freedom, National Security, Democracy, and Leadership Programs.  She has held presidentially appointed positions in the Departments of Justice, Defense, and State in both Republican and Democratic administrations.   

From 2023-2025, she served as the Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State.  She was nominated to serve in that role by President Joe Biden and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. While Ambassador, she  travelled to and directly engaged with government officials in 20 countries throughout every region of the world and oversaw a budget of over $300 million. 

From 2021-2023, she worked at the U.S. Department of Defense serving on the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military (IRC) that was ordered by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, III, at the direction of President Biden. Her appointment was extended to assist the Department of Defense with the implementation and oversight of the IRC recommendations. 

 For 12 years, she was the Vice President for Human Rights at Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO advancing women’s leadership. While at Vital Voices, she worked with local governmental and civil society leaders in more than 25 countries throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe to improve and implement laws and policies related to human trafficking and gender-based violence.  

From 2007 – 2009, she served as the Director of the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice.  She was nominated to serve in that role by President George W. Bush and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. As Director, she was responsible for developing the Department’s legal and policy positions regarding the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act and overseeing an annual budget of almost $400 million.  

Ambassador Dyer began her career at the local level serving as a specialized domestic and sexual violence prosecutor in Dallas, Texas for more than 13 years and also served as a weekly hotline volunteer at a local women’s shelter for 9 years. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M in Business Administration and Management and her J.D. from Baylor Law School. 

Gustavo is the Program Manager for the Amazon hotspot and joined the Freedom Fund in 2024. He brings more than a decade of experience as a policy and program lead at Oxfam Brasil, where he helped establish the organization and later served as a policy and advocacy advisor for Oxfam internationally.

He specializes in human rights, corporate accountability, labor issues, agriculture, and natural resource justice. His previous work includes roles with global INGOs such as CARE, The Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace, as well as Brazilian organizations including the Ethos Institute and Vitae Civilis.

Gustavo has a background in International Relations and Journalism and currently focuses on business and human rights, agriculture, forced labor, development, inequality, democracy, and colonialism.

Julia Gamolina is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Madame Architect. Trained as an architect herself and with over a decade of experience across all aspects of design, business development, and communications, Julia is also an Associate Principal at Ennead Architects and teaches graduate professional practice and media courses at Pratt Institute.

In 2024, Madame Architect received the AIANY Architecture in Media Award. In 2024 and 2023, Julia was listed in the Wallpaper* USA 300, a list of the people defining America’s creative landscape. Julia also received the Special Citation from AIANY in 2019 for her work with Madame Architect. Her writing has been featured in A Women’s Thing, Fast Company, Metropolis Magazine, and the Architect’s Newspaper.

Julia has lectured widely, across college campuses such as Harvard, Mount Holyoke, and UCLA; at international conferences like the Women, Architecture and Sustainability Congress in Bogota and the 2023 UIA World Congress of Architects in Copenhagen; and at events such as the New York Architecture Film Festival. She also organizes “Madame Architect Presents,” Madame Architect’s event series where she interviews architects in the spaces they designed.

Julia earned her Bachelor of Architecture at Cornell University, graduating with the Charles Goodwin Sands Medal for exceptional thesis. She was born in Novosibirsk, raised in Toronto, and is based in New York City, having also lived and worked in Austria, Italy, and Brazil.

Miranda Gardiner is the Executive Director of iMasons Climate Accord (ICA) — a groundbreaking trade association, focused on emissions reductions and sustainability in data centers. Under her visionary guidance, it has emerged as the premier, collaborative arena for digital infrastructure’s commitment to achieving ambitious climate goals by uniting the largest and most influential companies (such as Google, Meta, Dell Technologies, and Microsoft) in driving transformative initiatives.

Miranda has grown the iCA to a robust network of member companies with a combined market cap of over $8T, with 30+% of them represented on the various technical committees to ensure a “by the members, for the members” approach. Centered around Power, Equipment, and Materials — and in 2026, addition of Water — iCA has published a Maturity Model and case studies to address critical topics in these areas.

She has presented at Climate Week NYC and Datacloud Global Congress, and contributed to publications like PERE’s 2024 Data Centers Report.

In 2020, she received LEED Fellow status from USGBC, and in 2025, was recognized in Data Centre Magazine’s inaugural “Top 100 Women in Data Centers”.

Jake Goldbas is a creative director, educator, and drummer. The articulate detail that characterizes his musical direction has opened important doors beyond genre. In 2019 he recorded for the legendary O’Jays album “The Last Word” and Grammy nominated jazz album “Dancer in Nowhere” by Miho Hazama. Goldbas was the principal drummer for the Tony Award winning broadway show Dear Evan Hansen. His musical vision is intimately linked to his sense of social justice and global citizenship. Since 2020 he has been Director of Education Programs at the Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. Designing signature programs “The Mosaic Project”, “CuBop to Hip Hop” and “Power of the Pit” that serve over 10,000 students annually. Jake is currently the Deputy Director of Josh Groban’s Find Your Light Foundation, working to reduce the barriers of access to high quality arts education for young people across America. 

Jon Jacoby, GoodWeave International’s CEO since 2023, is a long-time advocate of responsible business, workers’ and human rights, and inclusive development.

Prior to joining GoodWeave, he led global grant-making on business and human rights in corporate supply chains at the Open Society Foundations (OSF). While at OSF, he co-founded Funders Organized for Rights in the Global Economy (FORGE) – a donor collaborative of nine private foundations that mobilized $250 million to advance the core human rights of marginalized workers around the world. He also co-founded the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, which marshals over $12 trillion in investor influence to advance corporate human rights due diligence.

Previously, he managed U.S. and global teams at Oxfam while co-leading the successful Behind the Brands campaign and index that advanced social and environmental sustainability at the world’s largest food and beverage companies, as well as led a confederation-wide policy review process as Special Advisor for private sector engagement to Oxfam International’s executive director. Jon also served as Associate Director for International Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, where he co-authored the report “Virtuous Circle” on globalization, international trade and core labor standards. He has appeared on news outlets such as CNN, BBC, PBS and CNBC.

Jon holds a Master of Business Administration and Master of Arts in international affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in social studies from Harvard University.

Amanda Kaminsky is Founder + Principal of Building Ecosystems. At Building Ecosystems, Amanda Kaminsky builds on 25 years of experience in Architecture, Real Estate Development, Construction, and Materials R&D to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams in building and scaling industrial ecosystems necessary for well-performing beneficial building industry innovations to thrive. 

She has led piloting, standardization, and scaling of systemic industry improvements for: recycled ground-glass pozzolan cement replacement, gypsum drywall closed loop recycling, commercial and residential portfolio organics collection, building material ingredient transparency and health, and uptake of electric construction equipment. 

Amanda sits on the Boards of Carbon Leadership Forum, Health Product Declaration Collaborative, Construction & Demolition Recycling Association, Recycling Certification Institute, Center for Zero Waste Design, and is a Member of Build Reuse. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture from the University of Virginia.

Steve has more than 20 years of experience as a sustainability professional in the furniture industry. He currently leads BIFMA’s Health and Sustainability programs including the e3/LEVEL sustainability certification program adopted by most commercial furniture manufacturers. Steve also services in the role of government advocacy for the commercial furniture industry with a focus on environmental and trade policies.  

Steve served as Haworth’s Global Sustainability/Open Innovation Manager for 10+ years as the built environment’s interest in green building flourished. Highlights at Haworth included: creating and driving well-being initiatives, setting sustainable design criteria for cleaner chemistry and responsible supply chains, and pursuing product certifications.  WELL and LEED experience includes managing or co-managing LEED certification projects in Asia, Europe, and North America as well as piloting the WELL certification in Shanghai and Los Angeles. 

In addition to his corporate roles, Steve has served on serval boards including mindfulMATERIALS and Certification Oversight Board for Eco-Certified Composite.

He graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor’s in Civil/Environmental Engineering. 

Gavin Laughland is a Designer at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in New York, where his work builds on BIG’s ongoing collaboration with Design for Freedom, supporting efforts to embed ethical sourcing and labor transparency into architectural practice. His work is driven by a commitment to leveraging design practice as a tool for accountability and ethical transformation within the built environment.

In parallel with his professional practice, Gavin has led research and advocacy efforts focused on ethical material sourcing and labor transparency within the AEC industry. Previously serving as the Design for Freedom Firm Initiative Lead at Page, he championed the implementation of pilot projects, internal education programs, and material research frameworks aimed at identifying and mitigating forced labor in architectural supply chains.

Mae-ling Lokko is an architectural scientist, designer and educator focused on the intersectoral design and research of biobased materials to drive ecological health and generative justice goals. She is an Assistant Professor at Yale School of Architecture where she teaches environmental design and on the history and contemporary design of biobased building technologies. At Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture, she directs doctoral research on the whole life cycle development, distributed infrastructures design and policy around non-toxic, low-carbon materials.

Given biobased building materials are poised to become part of the rapidly growing 21st century building materials economy, Lokko’s current research and writings aim to understand both the historical patterns, risks and opportunities around biobased material technologies. Her research has been funded by the reARC Institute, Yale’s ASCEND Program, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the SOM Foundation, the British Council, MIT’s Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative, the Luma Foundation, Housing the Human 2019 and NYSERDA. Her work and writings have been featured in the New York Times, Blueprint, ICON Magazine, eFlux, Blueprint, Wallpaper, MOLD, Frieze Magazine, RIBA Journal, DOMUS, Dezeen, DAMN Magazine, and other global design publications.

Lokko is also the founder of Willow, based in Ghana, aimed at developing academic-community research partnerships to implement and scale demonstration architectural projects. Through public exhibitions, Lokko’s work aims to explore new aesthetics associated with plant-based building material technologies that address deeply seated, social and cultural barriers to their adoption. Her recent work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Nobel Prize Museum, the Museum of the Future, Dubai, Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; Serralves Foundation, Portugal; Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Belgium; Sonsbeek Biennial, Netherlands; Triennale Milano, Italy; and Somerset House, London. Funded by the United Nations Environmental Program and Yale CEA, Willow’s research on both the regional and global biobased building materials industry was published in the key Building Materials and Climate: Constructing a New Future global report.Lokko previously taught at Cooper Union and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she served as the Director of the Building Sciences Program as well as Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture and Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE). Lokko holds a Ph.D. and Master of Science in Architectural Science from the Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology, RPI, and a B.A from Tufts University. Lokko currently serves on the Board of Directors for the International Living Future Institute and the Architectural League of New York.

Toshiko Mori, FAIA is the founding principal of Toshiko Mori Architect PLLC, and the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). She was previously chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002-2008. She is a graduate of the Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and holds an honorary master’s degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Pratt University. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2016 and the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2020, where she is currently Vice President of Architecture.

She participates in international symposia and conferences and has lectured at universities across the country and around the world. Her projects have been the focus of several publications, including the February 2020 issue of A+U magazine. Mori has won numerous awards including the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; the AIA New York Chapter Medal of Honor; the 2016 ACSA Tau Sigma Delta National Honor Society Gold Medal; the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education; Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Design Leader Award; Isamu Noguchi Award; and most recently the Philip Hanson Hiss Award in 2023 and Asia Society Asia Arts Game Changer Award in 2024. Architectural Digest has featured Mori in its annual AD100 list since 2014 and named Mori to the AD100 Hall of Fame in 2023; she was also named an Elle Decor A-List Titan. Mori was guest editor of Domus magazine for 2023.

Beverly Parenti, a serial entrepreneur with a focus on innovative technologies, co-founded The Last Mile (TLM) in 2010 at San Quentin State Prison alongside her husband and longtime business partner, Chris Redlitz.

TLM’s mission is to break the generational cycle of incarceration and reduce recidivism by providing education and training in prison that leads to gainful employment for its returned citizen graduates. It has quickly become one of the most sought-after prison education programs in the United States.

Notably, TLM was the first program to offer curriculum that teaches incarcerated men and women to become software engineers through web development and computer programming, as well as providing Audio Video Production training for sound and video engineers. Working as software developers while incarcerated, TLM graduates participated in a Joint Venture with CalPIA and earned a market wage determined by the EDD.

TLM’s success is evident across the 19 classrooms it runs in 9 states. Graduates achieve a 75% employment rate and maintain a recidivism rate under 5%, which is significantly lower than the national average exceeding 60%.

Rodolfo Perez is part of the Standard Development team at the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), where he develops and maintains Materials- and Water-related strategies for the WELL Building Standard since 2018. Before joining IWBI, he conducted water surveillance at the NYC Department of Health, after a career in startups bringing nanoparticle-based technologies from experiments to prototypes. He holds MS and PhD degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and undergraduate degrees in Chemical Engineering and Aesthetics from the Catholic University of Chile.

Nora is Grace Farms Foundation’s first Ethical Materials Director, focusing on the Design for Freedom Movement. Design for Freedom aims to eradicate modern slavery from the built environment by addressing the systemic use of forced labor in the building materials supply chain.

Nora serves as Ethical Material Advisor on Design for Freedom Pilot Projects and led the development of the Design for Freedom Toolkit. Design for Freedom Pilot Projects include Black Chapel by Theaster Gates (21^st Serpentine Pavilion, London, UK), Shadow of a Face by Nina Cooke John (Harriet Tubman Monument, Newark, NJ) and the New Canaan Library (New Canaan, CT).

For more than 15 years, Nora has dedicated herself to creating change in the built environment through her sustainability, resiliency, and social equity work. Before joining Grace Farms, Nora spent over a decade as Director of Sustainability for Fusco Corporation in New Haven, CT.

Nora currently serves on the Board of Directors for mindful MATERIALS and the CT Green Building Council and was invited to serve on the Governor’s Council for Climate Change (GC3) Infrastructure and Land Use Adaptation Working Group.

As one of the first Ambassadors in the world to be accredited by the International Living Future Institute, she founded the CT Living Future Collaborative. Nora also co-chairs the bi-annual Northeast Summit for a Sustainable Built Environment (NESSBE) Conference. This multi-day convening of industry experts has focused on themes including Health of Place, Equity of Place, and Power of Place.

An activist and environmentalist, Sabraw’s paintings, drawings and collaborative installations are produced in an eco-conscious manner, and he continually works toward a fully sustainable practice. He collaborates with scientists on many projects, and one of his current collaborations involves creating paint and paintings from iron oxide extracted in the process of remediating streams polluted by legacy coal mining. This sustainably sourced pigment is now for sale from Gamblin Artists Colors.

Sabraw’s art is in numerous collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Honolulu, the Elmhurst Museum in Illinois, Emprise Bank, Bank of America, and Accenture Corp. He is represented by Gallery Les Bois, London, UK; Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA; and McCormick Gallery, Chicago, IL.

Sabraw is a Distinguished Professor of Art at Ohio University where he chairs the Painting + Drawing and Digital Art + Technology programs and is Board Advisor at Scribble Art Workshop in New York. He has most recently been featured in TED, Smithsonian, New Scientist, London, Great big Stories, Business Insider, and Time.

Yiselle Santos Rivera is an architect, educator, and organizational strategist whose work lives at the intersection of design excellence, social impact, and systems change. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Yiselle’s journey blends science, storytelling, and service—shaped by a commitment to community, justice, and belonging.

She is the AIA 2026 President-Elect and will serve as AIA President in 2027. As the first Latina and neurodivergent woman to be elected to this role, Yiselle brings a perspective deeply rooted in advocacy and equity. Her leadership draws from over 15 years of experience spanning global design firms, academic institutions, and grassroots coalitions. She is the founder and CEO of YSR, LLC, a woman- and Latina-owned consultancy advancing intercultural design, healthcare architecture, and organizational transformation.

Formerly the Global Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at HKS, Yiselle led the firm’s equity strategy across 26 offices and more than 1,600 employees—launching internal policy reforms, firmwide education initiatives, and external partnerships like HKS xBE and the LIMITLESS equity series. She also founded WIELD (Women Inspiring Emerging Leaders in Design), a national platform for mentorship and visibility, and co-founded LA.IDEA, the first Latin American committee within AIA DC.

In her teaching role at Howard University, she is building the country’s first HBCU-based Healthcare Architecture program. Her academic work is complemented by doctoral research in Leadership Psychology at William James College, with a concentration in applied neuroscience.

Throughout her career, Yiselle has served across the full ecosystem of architectural leadership—including the AIA Strategic Council, NAAB, NOMA, LFRT, and AIA DC. She is known for her clarity, warmth, and deep belief that architects are not just builders of spaces, but stewards of culture and care.

Her presidency will focus on rebuilding trust, aligning strategy with impact, and ensuring that the AIA becomes a more resilient, inclusive, and future-ready organization—one that centers people in every design and every decision.

Wes Sullens, LEED Fellow, leads Materials & Resources activities at the U.S. Green Building Council. Wes guides leadership criteria related to construction waste, product manufacturing, material transparency, circular economy, and embodied carbon. He has worked in the public, private and nonprofit sectors for over 20 years on broad topics including energy efficiency, building codes, supply chain sustainability, and chemicals transparency.

Adam Thatcher is co-founder and CEO of Grace Farms Tea & Coffee. He envisioned the model of a nonprofit-owned business after learning about the innovative social enterprise structures possible under the IRS code while getting his MBA at NYU.

Prior to Grace Farms Tea & Coffee, Adam served as the Director of Operations and Sustainability for Grace Farms Foundation from 2015–2020. With a passion for ethical and environmental sustainability efforts, Adam led Grace Farms’ LEED Silver Certification for Operations + Maintenance. Before joining Grace Farms, Adam served as the Director of Food and Beverage at Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows ski resorts in Lake Tahoe, California. In 2014 Adam was named of the 10 most impactful leaders in the ski industry under the age of 30

As Chief Strategic Officer and Founding Creative Director, Chelsea galvanizes a diverse set of collaborators together across artistic disciplines to enhance our CEO and Founder, Sharon Prince’s vision for Grace Farms. Chelsea has been a key contributor to Grace Farms Foundation since 2015, and is also Vice Chair of Grace Farms Foundation’s Board of Directors. Chelsea’s distinct contributions to Grace Farms include the development of international partnerships with cultural institutions, leading design companies, and artists; the manifestation of the Grace Farms brand identity; site-responsive arts projects and commissions, and publications. Impactful collaborations include partnerships with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, MillerKnoll, and Pentagram.

Chelsea initiated the first Design for Freedom Pilot Projects: The Brij Cultural Center in New Delhi, India; Shadow of a Face monument celebrating Harriet Tubman by Nina Cooke John in Newark, New Jersey; Theaster Gates’ 21^st Serpentine Pavilion at Serpentine Galleries in London, England; and New Canaan Library, New Canaan, Connecticut.

Chelsea curates Grace Farms’ exhibits, beginning with Common Good Through Crisis with MASS Design and Pentagram, and Peace Forest, with Shohei Yoshida (Shohei Yoshida + associates) and Peter Miller (Palette Architecture). Chelsea curated With Every Fiber, the first exhibit to bring Design for Freedom to the public. Portions of With Every Fiber were adapted and presented in the Intelligens CANON at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Chelsea also introduced an artist-in-residency program, starting with a year-long residency with James Florio, who is creating images of Grace Farms using large-format film.

Chelsea currently leads all arts programming with a suite of best-in-class advisors, Music Director, Marcus G. Miller, and Toshihiro Oki, Architectural Advisor, and Director of Arts Operations, Publications, and Exhibits, Emily Altman.

She also leads all marketing and design, and is focused on developing a foundation-wide project to enhance Grace Farms’ design for neurodiversity in partnership with Grace Farms’ executive team and with consultation from BuroHappold.

Chelsea co-edited and managed the design and editorial process of Design for Freedom, Grace Farms’ high-level industry report on slavery in the built environment and made critical contributions to the report’s editorial impact, which features more than 30 leaders within the ecosystem of the built environment. Chelsea has also created additional Foundation publications, including its first book, and souls are candles, annual reports, and thought leadership pieces.

Prior to joining Grace Farms Foundation, Chelsea started two businesses, including an award-winning publishing company, and gained traditional publishing experience at Conde Nast and through education at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. In July 2024, Chelsea was elected to the Ridgefield Academy Board of Trustees, a policy-making body responsible for guiding the Academy’s mission and ensuring its successful fulfillment of academic excellence and fostering the individual growth of each  student.

Steve founded Webb Yates Engineers with Andy Yates in 2005. Since founding the company, he has led a number of prestigious, multi award-winning projects, including the Stirling Prize shortlisted 15 Clerkenwell Close, The Kantor Centre of Excellence for the Anna Freud Centre, and the Hoover Building.

While thriving to make building structures intrinsic to architecture, Steve has pioneered the practice’s approach to innovation and sustainability. He is a strong advocate for the use of non-conventional materials to design low carbon structures, from cast iron to cork, and from inflatables to stone and timber.

Steve has written extensively for industry publications, including the Architect’s Journal, Architectural Review, Architecture Today, and the RIBA Journal. In 2020, he was awarded the Milne Medal, for continuously challenging and redefining what is considered possible in structural design.

Claire Weisz, FAIA. Hon. FRAIC, Hon. ASLA, OAA, is a founding partner of WXY, a New York based studio globally recognized for its community-centered approach to design. Combining architecture and planning the practice works at all scales. WXY was one of Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2019 and Most Innovative Companies in Urban Development and Real Estate for 2023. WXY was AIA New York State Firm of the Year Award in 2016.  With her partner Mark Yoes, she received the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Award and the Emerging Voices Award. Weisz was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2017, awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018, honored with the Women in Architecture Award by Architectural Record and recognized as ENR’s New York Legacy Award Winner in 2024. 

 Dave Wildman is Bloomberg’s Global Head of Datacenter, Workplace Infrastructure & Sustainability, overseeing critical infrastructure worldwide and driving the company’s sustainability strategy. With over 25 years at Bloomberg, he holds an Executive MBA from Cornell and is a member of MIET, IEEE, ASHRAE, and IFMA. Dave serves on the HEAF Board, mentors with The Fortune Society, chairs Infrastructure Masons NYC chapter, a member of the Bloomberg New Economy Energy Technology Coalition, and is an advocate for clean air and the eradication of forced labor in supply chains. Dave also serves on various other related industry working groups.