Talks

For Good: Designing Cities for the Anthropocene

Prof. Nina-Marie Lister is Professor in the School of Urban Planning at Toronto Metropolitan University where she founded and directs the Ecological Design Lab. A Senior Fellow of Massey College, and Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Lister holds the John R. Bracken Fellowship in Landscape Architecture at Penn State. As a registered professional planner and landscape ecologist, Lister’s lab connects people and nature in our cities. Her research is funded by the federal government and is published widely, with a focus on green infrastructure design for climate resilience, biodiversity, and human wellbeing. A recipient of the Canadian Green Building Council’s excellence and leadership award, Lister was nominated among Planetizen’s Most Influential Urbanists and in 2021, Lister was awarded the Margolese National Prize for design. 

Julia Czerniak is Dean and Professor at University at Buffalo. Educated both as an architect and a landscape architect, Czerniak’s research and practice draw on the intersection of these disciplines. Her recent design research advances landscape as a protagonist in envisioning and creating biodiverse, climate resilient cities. 

Czerniak’s work as a designer is complemented by her work as an educator and writer: she has been invited to over 70 institutions as public speaker; served as a guest juror at over 30 different schools globally, many as keynote; authored, edited or been featured in over 60 publications, including 3 edited volumes; and has participated in over 80 conferences, panels and events globally. In addition, Czerniak has received many awards and honors including a 2024 residency at the American Academy in Rome and the J.B. Jackson Book Prize.

Dr. Soren Brothers is the Allan and Helaine Shiff Curator of Climate Change at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. He is also an Assistant Professor at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. Soren’s research examines the effects of climate change on lakes, and how changes in aquatic systems can influence their greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. More broadly, he is interested in understanding how feedback loops and the transdisciplinary study of lakes can help us better understand and predict global tipping points that may accelerate anthropogenic climate change.