Elizabeth Goldstein is President of the Municipal Art Society, New York’s oldest advocacy group for preservation and planning.

 Elizabeth grew up in the Soundview neighborhood in the Bronx and was a central player in New York’s parks, recreation and historic preservation sector for more than a decade. She served as director of planning for the City’s Department of Parks and Recreation, and later as New York City regional director of the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, where she oversaw the start-up of Riverbank State Park and served on the panel that developed the public-private land use plan for Hudson River Park.

Marion Weiss is cofounder of WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism and the Graham Chair Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, Marion was honored by Architectural Record with the Women in Architecture Design Leader Award. Marion received her Master of Architecture from Yale University and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. At Yale, she won the American Institute of Architects Scholastic Award and the SOM Traveling Fellowship. She has taught design studios at Harvard University, Yale University, Cornell University, and since 1991 has been a faculty member at Penn's Weitzman School of Design where she leads research studios on the intersection of infrastructural, social, and ecological challenges. In 2019, Marion received the Residence Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and was honored with the University of Virginia’s 2020 Distinguished Alumnae Award for recognition of her achievements in Architecture. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a National Academy of Design inductee.

Michael Manfredi is cofounder of WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism and a Senior Design Critic at Harvard University. Michael was born in Trieste, Italy and grew up in Rome. He completed his undergraduate education in the United States at Notre Dame and received his Master of Architecture at Cornell University where he studied with Colin Rowe. He won the Paris Prize, was a Cornell Fellow, and was awarded an Eidlitz Fellowship. He has taught design studios at Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, Cornell University, and, most recently, at Harvard University where he teaches Urban Design studios that focus on larger interdisciplinary questions that connect architecture to pressing urban and environmental challenges. With Marion Weiss, Michael is a recipient of the 2019 Residence Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.

Adrienne Benepe, a leading expert in parks and open green space, is the current president and CEO of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Over the past four decades he has headed non-profit and government organizations specializing in providing open spaces for underserved communities. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President and Director of City Park Development at Trust for Public Land where he oversaw the 10-minute Walk to a Park campaign, Climate-Smart Cities, Community Health, and Creative Placemaking. For 11 years he was the 14th Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation under Mayor Bloomberg which culminated his 27 years in the public sector.

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Paul Goldberger is The New School's Joseph Urban Professor of Design and the former Architecture Critic for both The New Yorker and The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. One of the nation's most respected architecture critics, he has also won the National Building Museum's Vincent Scully Prize, the President's Medal of the Municipal Art Society of New York, the medal of the American Institute of Architects, and the Medal of Honor of the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, he is the author of several books, including BALLPARK: Baseball in the American City, published in 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf; BUILDING ART: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, published in 2015 by Knopf; Why Architecture Matters, published in 2009 by Yale University Press; and Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, a collection of his architecture essays published in 2009 by Monacelli Press. Paul Goldberger's chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, which was published by Random House in the fall of 2004, was named one of The New York Times Notable Books for 2004. An active lecturer on architecture, planning and historic preservation around the country, Paul Goldberger has also served as an advisor on architect selection and design to many organizations and institutions including the Barack Obama Foundation, the New York Public Library, the Glenstone Museum, and Lincoln Center.