People

Mary is President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute. An impassioned civic leader with diverse experience in the business, government, not-for-profit and philanthropy sectors in Canada and the US for over 30 years, Mary has been a steady advocate and champion for place-based approaches to building livable and resilient cities, and community-driven local economies.…

Kamala Todd is a Metis-Cree mother, community planner, filmmaker, curator, and educator born and raised in the beautiful lands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Skwxwú7mesh-speaking people, aka Vancouver. She has a Masters degree in Urban Geography from UBC. Kamala is the City of Vancouver’s first Indigenous Arts and Culture Planner. In previous years, she was Vancouver’s…

Josipa Petrunic is the Executive Director & CEO of CUTRIC. She is leading the formulation of several national transportation technology trials related to zero-emissions transportation and “smart vehicles” innovation, including the Pan-Canadian Electric Bus Demonstration & Integration Trial, the Pan-Canadian Hydrogen Fuel Cell Demonstration & Integration Trial, and the National Smart Vehicle Demonstration Project. Dr.…

José Roberto Moreira is Senior Professor of Energy at the Institute of Energy and Environment, University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil. Prior to his current position, he worked as a nuclear physics researcher at the University of Sendai, Japan and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975), he was also an Energy Researcher at the…

Bill Given is the Mayor of Grande Prairie, Alberta, a young and rapidly growing community of about 70,000 serving a trading area of just under 300,000. First elected in 2001, Mayor Given holds the distinction of being the youngest person ever elected to Grande Prairie’s City Council at the age of 24. After serving 3…

Jennifer Fix is an Associate of Urban Planning and Design at DIALOG, an integrated urban design firm with studios in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and San Francisco. She works with communities of all shapes and sizes on plans for Main Streets, transit streets, waterfronts, neighbourhoods, and entire cities and regions. The common thread tying these…

Laura Capobianco is a Senior Policy Advisor on Safe Public Spaces in the Ending Violence against Women and Girls Section. Since 2012, she has contributed to the development of a Global Framework on Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces and an accompanying global package of tools that are being adapted by and help to support…

Jennifer Campbell is a mixed race woman of Métis, First Nation and European ancestry, and is the Founder and President of Two Worlds Consulting. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Environmental Professional (EP) with two decades of experience as an executive, government regulator, and Indigenous relations specialist. Ms. Campbell provides strategic advice…

Mitchell Brownstein is the mayor of the City of Côte Saint-Luc (pop. 34,066), a suburb of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. A lawyer by profession, Mitchell founded the law firm Brownstein and Brownstein with his brother in 1990. Mitchell was first elected as a city councillor in Côte Saint-Luc in 1990. He was acclaimed as the 12th…

Abram Benedict is the Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA) and leads a dynamic team of 13 Council members who govern the Mohawk community of Akwesasne. Akwesasne is the second largest First Nation community in Canada and is uniquely located on the international borders of Canada and the United States, and the…

Paola Ardiles is a public health champion, educator and social entrepreneur. Her work is rooted in community engaged scholarship, systems thinking and participatory practice. In 2017, Paola received the inaugural Health Promotion Canada’s Mid-career National award and was recognized as one of TD Bank’s 10 most influential Hispanic Canadians. In 2013, Paola founded Bridge for…

Susannah C. Drake FASLA, AIA is the founding principal of DLANDstudio PLLC Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Using grants and fellowships to remake infrastructure for storm-water capture, climate adaptation, and park creation, Susannah became an established leader in urban resilience planning and design. Susannah’s theories, practice and…