Meet the 2026 Planet Positive Awards Jurors

The METROPOLIS Planet Positive Awards are the largest awards program focused on sustainability, health, and well-being in the built environment.

With more than 50 categories spanning projects, products, innovation, and people, the 2026 Planet Positive Awards celebrate the meaningful progress being made toward a more sustainable and equitable future. Click here for the full list of 2026 categories.

Project entries will be judged on how effectively they mitigate environmental impact, advance social equity, tackle complex challenges with creativity, and integrate beauty, function, and community value. Product entries are assessed for their innovation, contribution to health and equity, use of sustainable materials and processes, and transparency through third-party certifications. Learn how to enter this year’s awards here.

Entries are reviewed by leading experts across the industry. This year, project winners will be selected by jurors from academia, nonprofits, and sustainability leadership, while product winners will be chosen by top specifiers and material experts driving sustainable design forward.

Interested in submitting for METROPOLIS’s 2026 Planet Positive Awards?

Melissa Berardi
CBRE / Project Management Director

Melissa Berardi is a director for CBRE Project Management’s Building Sustainability Consulting team, where she leads ESG strategy development and manages third-party certification processes across North America. She takes a multidisciplinary approach to align client goals with environmental and lifecycle impacts, guiding teams through the complexities of certifications such as LEED (V3 and V4), WELL, WELL Health-Safety Rating, Fitwel, Green Globes, BREEAM In-Use, and LEED Volume. Berardi provides technical oversight and strategic direction throughout each project phase to ensure sustainability goals are fully integrated and successfully implemented.

With nearly two decades of experience in architecture and engineering, Berardi has a deep understanding of sustainable design and construction. She has trained architects, building owners, and property managers on best practices and has delivered sustainability solutions across commercial, education, government, and financial sectors.

Beatrice Galilee
The World Around / Co-founder and Executive Director

Beatrice Galilee is an internationally recognized architecture curator, author and design advisor. She is founder and executive director of The World Around, a New York-based nonprofit platform dedicated to visionary global design and architecture. She is the author of Radical Architecture of the Future, published by Phaidon in 2021, and between 2014-2019 served as the first curator of contemporary architecture and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked on collections, exhibitions and commissions including collaborations with artists including Wolfgang Tillmans, Cornelia Parker and Adrián Villar Rojas. 

Between 2009–2013, Galilee served as chief curator of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale; co-curator of 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, co-curator of 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. In collaboration with Aberrant Architecture, she launched and co-directed The Gopher Hole, an experimental exhibition and project space in East London.

Kelly Moynihan
AIA Chicago / President

Kelly Moynihan serves as a Principal at Nurture, a design leader that pursues the preservation and creation of carbon-free, equitable, high-performance projects. A graduate of IIT, Kelly is a multi-faceted architect, with diverse experience across affordable housing, education, historic preservation/reuse, and interiors.

As a Certified Passive House Consultant and WELL AP, Moynihan prioritizes maximizing energy efficiency within building assemblies and systems while creating beautiful, healthy places for humans. She is actively involved as Co-Chair of the AIA Chicago COTE Knowledge Community, Board Member of the Passive House Alliance Chicago Chapter, and Illinois Green Alliance, developing educational programming focused on strategies for decarbonizing the built environment.

Ken Potts
Mayo Clinic / Architect and Senior Project Manager

Ken Potts is an Architect and Senior Project Manager in the Department of Facilities and Support Services at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In this role, he and the Project Services team are responsible for delivery of over 200 capital projects annually. In addition to Project Management, Potts serves as Secretary to one of Mayo Clinic’s capital funding subcommittees.

Potts has been with Mayo Clinic for 10 years. His prior experience includes consulting architecture, real estate development and construction. He brings expertise in sustainable design and construction to all his roles. Potts has also contributed this knowledge to several organizations, including Minneapolis Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Conference, Minnesota Environmental Initiative, and U.S. Green Building Council.

Yakuh Askew
Y.A. studio / Architect and Principal

Yakuh Askew founded Y.A. studio twenty years ago on a belief that architecture has a responsibility to the people who commission it, the communities that live with it, and the planet that sustains us all. Based in San Francisco, his practice spans affordable housing, residential, and commercial work, united by a conviction that sustainability is not an amenity to be unlocked at a certain budget threshold. It belongs to every project that shapes how people move through their day. 

Askew brings particular urgency to climate-conscious design for underserved populations—those who bear the greatest burden of environmental inequity and deserve the most from the built environment. 

Kristen Dotson
Amazon / Principal, Worldwide Sustainability, Sustainable Buildings

Kristen Dotson is a dedicated sustainability professional with extensive experience in green building performance, building certifications, Scope 3 embodied carbon, mass timber, healthy materials, and sustainability implementation & process improvement. She is currently leveraging all of these skills and experiences for Amazon’s Worldwide Sustainability organization as part of the Sustainable Buildings team.

Throughout her career, she has focused on supporting and catalyzing sustainability achievement in hundreds of building projects while driving organizational change in real estate portfolio delivery. She continues to be a technical consultant, certification bar raiser, carbon accountant, owner’s representative, contractor trainer, and general troublemaker/catalyst for positive change everywhere she goes. 

Felix Heisel
Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning / Director

Felix Heisel is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. He is a faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and a graduate field member in architecture, systems engineering, and matter design computation. Heisel is a licensed architect in Germany and partner of 2hs Architekten und Ingenieur PartGmbB, an office specializing in the development of circular prototypologies.

Heisel’s scholarship focuses on a systemic redesign of the built environment as a material depot of endless use and reconfiguration. He has received various awards for his work and published several books and articles on the topic. Heisel graduated from the Berlin University of the Arts and has been teaching and researching at universities around the world, including the Berlage Institute; the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction, and City Developments; the Future Cities Laboratory Singapore; ETH Zürich; and Harvard GSD.

Kyle Pickett
USGBC California / Senior Project Manager, Community Initiatives

Kyle Pickett is the Senior Project Manager, Community Initiatives with USGBC California, where he plays a hands-on leadership role advancing high-impact initiatives that connect strategy to real-world outcomes in the built environment. As part of the organization’s new eXperience team, Kyle serves as a steward, builder, and “quarterback” for cross-cutting efforts that support the California Alliance of Sustainability Executives (CASE), the Contractor’s Commitment, and the development and dissemination of best practice guides, case studies, and demystified technical resources. His work spans water stewardship, thought leadership amplification, and the coordination of strategic initiatives that strengthen industry alignment and accelerate climate action.

Pickett is also the Co-founder, Board Advisor, and VP Emeritus of the William Worthen Foundation, where he helped shape an organization focused on research and public outreach around the performance and beauty of the built environment. Previously, Pickett led leadership and market development at New Buildings Institute, overseeing the Getting to Zero Forum in collaboration with Rocky Mountain Institute, and co-founded Urban Fabrick, Inc.

Verda Alexander
Studio O+A / Co-founder

Verda Alexander has spent over 30 years in the design industry redefining the workplace and looking ahead to the future of work itself. Over the past decade she has focused on experimental projects: installations, activations, interactive exhibits, and a mobile design lab that engaged with communities across California.

Alexander’s current work focuses on expanding the conversation around design, social justice, climate activism, and art. She recently completed an open-source toolkit with Studio O+A called the EcoPlaybook, challenging designers to put planet and people first. Additionally, she cohosts Break Some Dishes, a podcast that engages innovators in conversations about climate change, and is Editor at Large for METROPOLIS.

Katie Bowman
HOK / Sustainable Design Leader

Katie Bowman is a Sustainable Design Leader for HOK’s San Francisco and Seattle Studios. She brings over 30 years of insight to sustainability with her extensive experience in the world of design and construction.

Bowman has held several project roles including designer, manager, and technical lead on various project types including the San Francisco and Doha Airports, data center and workplace facilities for Google and over 30 workplace and hospitality interiors projects with a wide range of clients. Committed to work exclusively on LEED, WELL, Net Zero and other sustainability-focused projects, Bowman leads integrated sustainable and regenerative design across HOK projects.

Lona Rerick
Perkins&Will / Architect and Director of Regenerative Design

Lona Rerick is an Architect and Director of Regenerative Design Materials at Perkins&Will. She leads Perkins&Will’s efforts to define, select, and specify holistically responsible materials to positively support the impact areas of the Materials Pledge: Human Health, Climate Health, Ecosystem Health, and Social Health + Equity in a Circular Economy. Rerick guides clients, design teams, and contractors through the intricacies of material supply chains, product research, and specifications writing. 

She is also a tireless volunteer advocating and collaborating for market transformation leading to better materials for all. Currently, Rerick serves on the mindful MATERIALS Board; the Living Future Material Health TAG; and as a founding co-Leader of the Portland Materials Transparency Collaborative. Rerick was AIA Materials Knowledge Working Group chair who led the creation of the Materials Pledge in 2018 and the founding chair of the AIA Materials Pledge Working Group which created the Pledge metrics and annual reporting system.

Jonsara Ruth
Healthy Materials Lab / Co-founder and Design Director

Jonsara Ruth is the co-founder and Design Director of the Healthy Materials Lab (HML) at Parsons School of Design, where she is also an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the MFA Interior Design program. At HML, she leads efforts to improve the health of underserved communities by transforming design and material practices. Through her teaching, research, and symposia, she fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on design’s impact on health and the environment.

A designer, artist, and founder of Salty Labs, Ruth has led creative teams to develop award-winning, environmentally friendly children’s furniture designed to improve indoor air quality and overall health. Her work focuses on elevating everyday human experiences, and her designs have been widely published.