Jennifer Keesmaat is an urban planner passionate about creating places where people flourish. Named one of the “most powerful people in Canada” by Macleans, one of the “most influential” by Toronto Life, and one of the top Women of Influence in Canada, she spent five years as Toronto’s Chief City Planner, where she was celebrated for her forward thinking and collaborative approach to city-building.

A Distinguished Visitor in Residence Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Keesmaat continues to share her vision for cities of the future, and her belief in the importance of public sector leadership through a variety of publications including The Guardian, Macleans, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and on her podcast, Invisible City. Keesmaat is on the Advisory Board of the Urban Land Institute, Toronto, and is appointed to the International Panel of Experts, Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority.

Over the past fifteen years, as a founding partner of the Office for Urbanism and subsequently Dialog, Keesmaat worked in municipalities across Canada and around the world on urban design guidelines, official plan reviews and strategies for creating dense, walkable cities. Her planning practice is characterized by an emphasis on collaborations across sectors, and broad engagement with municipal staff, councils, developers, business leaders, NGO’s, and residents associations. Keesmaat has been recognized for her expertise in transit planning, heritage preservation, strategy development, communications, sustainable economic development and the creation of walkable, complete communities.

In 2018, Keesmaat ran for Mayor in the City of Toronto on a progressive, visionary platform that included addressing the housing crisis by building at scale on city-owned land and implementing a Rent-to-Own program; neighbourhood-based crime prevention through the development of Community Wellbeing Plans for each neighbourhood in the city; redesigning city streets to prioritize vulnerable users such as children, seniors, pedestrian and cyclists; the development of five Cultural Hubs to instigate renewal outside of the core; and the tearing down of the Gardiner Expressway to build a new walkable, transit-oriented waterfront neighbourhood community.

Keesmaat has a Combined Honours degree in Philosophy and English from the University of Western Ontario, and a Masters in Environmental Studies, Politics and Planning, from York University. As a Registered Professional Planner, her work has been repeatedly recognized by professional associations, including as the recipient of the 2016 President’s Award of Excellence, from the Canadian Institute of Planners; the 2016 Bryden Alumni Award, York University, the 2017 City Builders Award from EDIT/the Design Exchange; the International Placemaking Award, City of Lyon, France 2017; and most recently, the 2019 The Edmund N. Bacon Award from the Center for Architecture and Design, Philadelphia.

Her award-winning and widely acclaimed podcast can be found at invisiblecitypodcast.com. In it, she talks about a broad range of future city and technological topics, including access to food security in The Cauliflower Crisis, how to plan for autonomous vehicles in The Future of the City, The Future of the Car; and the opportunity of raising kids in dense, urban environments in 5 Kids, One Condo. Jennifer also brings light to the biggest challenges facing cities in her Within Reach podcast, in partnership with Newstalk 1010.

Katie joined MASS in 2020 as a Senior Principal. Before joining MASS full time, she served as a board member for three years, providing insight on how design practice promotes economic and social equity, environmental sustainability, and healthy communities. Previously the vice president of Design & Sustainability at Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., she is an expert in affordable housing, community development, and leadership cultivation.

A member of the second class of Enterprise Rose Fellowship, Swenson was tapped to grow and lead the program in 2007, after completing her fellowship with the Piedmont Housing in Charlottesville. Under her leadership, Swenson has recruited and mentored 85 fellows who are the next generation of leaders in architecture and community development.

Following her Rose fellowship, Swenson founded the Charlottesville Community Design Center in Charlottesville and, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, led it to establish an international design competition. Based on the innovations that emerged from the competition and work, she co-authored “Growing Urban Habitats: Seeking a New Housing Development Model” with William Morrish and Susanne Schindler.

Katie has taught at the Boston Architectural College and Parsons School of Design at The New School, and lectured extensively on sustainable community development and affordable housing. She holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from the University of California-Berkeley and a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia. She was a 2018-2019 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

She is the author of the forthcoming publication, “Design With Love,” stories from 20 years of the Enterprise Rose Fellowship, with photography by Harry Connolly. The book will be published in August 2020 by Schiffer Publishing.

Specializing in healthcare architecture and planning, Joan Saba brings more than 25 years of expertise and strategic vision to all types of healthcare projects, with a focus on academic medical centers, pediatric and teaching hospitals.

Joan’s expertise in translating current and future programmatic and operational needs into effective healing environments is applied to projects of diverse scales. She has developed long-term client relationships with a range of prestigious healthcare organizations and has advised on some of the nation’s most pressing healthcare design issues. Joan is a trusted advisor to boards and senior management teams in developing and implementing strategies and capital planning tailored to specific organizational needs.

She has recently led the healthcare planning and design efforts on the Kimmel Pavilion at New York University’s Langone Medical Center and a new medical center at the American University of Beirut. Her recent work on the Massachusetts General Hospital Lunder Building has won numerous design and industry awards, including a National Healthcare Design Award from the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health.

Recognized as an industry expert and dynamic educator, Joan is frequently asked to lecture and teach on trends and innovations in the planning and design of academic healthcare and pediatric environments. She was recently interviewed by Forbes China and Chinese Business News Weekly on recommendations to improve healthcare in China. Recent speaking engagements include presentations at Stanford Medicine X, The Economist Health Care Forum, the Academy of Architecture for Health, Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Executive Education Program, and the Symposium of Healthcare Design. In 2012, Joan was named as one of Healthcare Design magazine’s HCD 10. She was also a recipient of the AIA / Academy of Architecture for Health’s Presidential Citation Award and was included in Healthcare Design’s list of “Twenty Who Are Making a Difference.”

Katharine Lusk is the founding Executive Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University where she spearheads new university-wide programs and research, including the Menino Survey of Mayors, student government fellowships, original urban scholarship and multi-stakeholder conferences. She also serves as Senior Personnel to the NSF-funded Smart City Cloud Platform project directed by the Hariri Institute and on the Advisory Board of the BU Urban Affairs and City Planning program.

Katharine was a policy advisor to former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, where she led his work to make Boston the first city in the country to achieve pay equity for women. In addition to creating the Mayor’s Women’s Workforce Council, she authored, “Boston: Closing the Wage Gap,” identifying evidence-based interventions employers can take to close the gender wage gap. An enthusiastic civic entrepreneur, Katharine launched a new capital fund for child care providers, a platform for women small business owners, Women on Main, and the nation’s first mobile City Hall, City Hall to Go.

In 2014, she served as an advisor to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Successful Women, Successful Families Task Force. Prior to entering public service, Katharine worked as a brand strategist and researcher for Fortune 500 companies. She was most recently the VP/Director of Branding with McCann Erickson, the global advertising agency.

She received a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was the recipient of the Barbara Jordan Award for Women’s Leadership and the Manuel Carballo Award for her graduate thesis modeling state-run paid family leave for Massachusetts. She earned her BA from Williams College.