Kathleen Hetrick

Kathleen Hetrick is a sustainability consultant at Buro Happold and a LEED AP BD+C, EcoDistricts AP and WELL AP. As part of Buro Happold’s sustainability and physics team, Kathleen combines her passion for human-focused sustainable design with a technical background in mechanical engineering. She has experience in a wide range of cutting-edge projects across all scales of work including multiple LEED platinum projects, Living Building Challenge projects, historical adaptive reuse, LEED Neighborhood Developments, and city and campus sustainability plans. 

Kathleen recently led the WELL certification process for the Buro Happold Los Angeles Office, following the LEED v4 Gold Certification of the office space through her role as the Buro Happold West Coast Environmental Coordinator. Her experience with the Living Building Challenge Material Red List requirements has prompted her to spark a firm-wide effort to identify and reduce the most harmful chemicals within the MEP scope of work, and fuels her passion for improving the health aspects of
sustainable materials on all of her projects. She is also the current Co-Facilitator of Buro Happold’s Diversity and Inclusion Forum, spearheading outreach initiatives to encourage local K-12 students to pursue sustainability- focused careers in STEAM through mentoring, design competitions and paid high school internships.

Ruby Rose

Ruby Rose is a seasoned building industry professional with 15+ years experience specializing in affordable housing projects.

Ruby Rose graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a Bachelor of Architecture. She has gained industry experience through her work in architecture, construction, and sustainability consulting. She
holds several certifications including LEED AP BD+C, Certified Energy Analyst, Certified Green Building Professional and a Green Rater. As an energy consultant, Ruby Rose has guided teams to successfully secure funding and implementing sustainability features required for Third
Party Certifications and Utility incentive programs. She certified over 30 projects as LEED or GreenPoint Rated.

Ruby Rose currently supports Southern California Edison as a Senior Advisor assisting developers and builders and promoting decarbonization programs and resources. She is very active in the building industry currently serving as a Planning Commissioner for the city of South El Monte and a former Board Member for the US Green Building Council Los Angeles Chapter and California Association of Building Energy Consultants. She is a committee member of the ICC Los Angeles Basin Sustainability Committee and Professional Women in Building, as well as a board member for the Baldy View Chapter of the Building Industry Association.

Ruby Rose is passionate about serving those around her, volunteering in a number of roles such as president of the Latino Professional Alumni Chapter at Cal Poly Pomona, Membership Director for the Latino Business Resource Group at SCE and offering free yoga classes to her local community to create unity amongst community members.

Melissa Daniel

Melissa R. Daniel is an architectural designer in Maryland, and the creator and host of the Architecture is Political, a podcast where Black and Brown folks have a conversation about architecture. She served as executive co-chair of the 2017 AIA Women’s Leadership Summit, and was a recipient of a 2018 AIA Associates Award.

David Benjamin

David Benjamin is Founding Principal of The Living and Associate Professor at Columbia GSAPP. His work combines research and practice, with a focus on an expanded and actionable framework of environmental sustainability. Recent projects include the Airbus NIS Engine Factory (a low-carbon lighthouse project for the future of manufacturing), the Princeton University Embodied Computation Lab (a new building for research on robotics and IoT), and Hy-Fi (a branching tower for MoMA PS1 made of a new type of biodegradable brick).

Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh is the Founder and now serves as Strategic Advisor to the Healthy Building Network (HBN).  Since 2000 HBN has been defining the leading edge of healthy building practices that increase transparency in the building products industry, reduce human exposures to chemicals in building materials, and create market incentives for healthier innovations in manufacturing.  He has been Visiting Professor at Parsons The New School for Design, is a Fellow of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, and a founding board member of the Health Product Declaration (HPD) Collaborative.  Bill and HBN have been awarded the Design for Humanity Award by the American Society of Interior Designers (2019);  WEACT for Environmental Justice Leadership Award (2018); Healthy Schools Network Hero (2013); US Green Building Council’s Leadership In Advocacy Award (2012). Previously he served as a national campaign director at Greenpeace USA, and held staff attorney positions with the US Public Interest Research Group and the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center.  He holds a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law and LLM in Public Interest Advocacy from Georgetown University.

Suzanne Drake

Suzanne Drake’s career has focused on commercial interiors, specializing in creating healthy environments and being the conduit for healthy materials knowledge dissemination. As an interior designer, she draws on over two decades of experience in workplace, health care, and laboratory environments to support client initiatives and sustainability goals. Currently she is leading Revel’s sustainability initiative. She was instrumental in developing the Precautionary List, and has co-authored three installments of the Healthy Environments whitepaper series, including Strategies for Avoiding Flame Retardants in the Built Environment, What’s New (and What’s Not) With PVC, and Understanding Antimicrobial Ingredients in Building Materials. Her book EcoSoul: Save the Planet and Yourself by ReThinking your Everyday Habits was published in 2013.

Harold Rickenbacker

Dr. Harold Rickenbacker is Clean Air and Innovation Manager at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in Washington, DC. In his role, he focuses on developing and executing strategies to identify, test and demonstrate the value of hyperlocal insights, leading to commitments to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollution emissions. Prior to EDF, Harold completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh, where he integrated engineering and environmental justice concepts with community-based organizations to address the pressing issue of indoor and outdoor air pollution in under-served communities. Harold has also worked closely with energy conservation districts to link energy efficiency meausres with indoor air quality improvements.

Veena Singla

Veena Singla focuses on creating healthier indoor environments, including limiting the use of toxic chemicals in the built environment and every day products. She investigates how toxic chemicals and harmful environmental exposures threaten the health of vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, children and workers. Her research uses an interdisciplinary approach incorporating environmental health, exposure science, public health and policy expertise.

Veena specializes in the communication of complex scientific information at the intersection of research and policy and has testified to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Alaska state legislature, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She currently serves on the US EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, and the Board of Directors for Clean Production Action.

Veena previously was the Associate Director of Science and Policy at the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed a postdoctoral teaching fellowship at Stanford University and was an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in cell biology from UCSF.