Building Equity. Together.

Bridging the worlds of academia and practice, Dr. Mariela Alfonzo is the Founder and CEO of State of Place, an AI-driven, urban design data and predictive analytics software that helps citymakers make more effective, cost-efficient, bottom-up, transparent, and accountable decisions to create livable, equitable, sustainable places people love. An expert on the value of urban design, Dr. Alfonzo focuses on quantifying how the micro-scale aspects of the built environment affect our behaviors, perceptions, and decisions and, in turn, how these impact health, broadly defined to include physical, social, environmental, and fiscal health.

Currently, Mr. Cisneros is Co-Chief Investment Officer and Chairman of American Triple I Partners and is a Principal of an investment banking firm, Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C., and Chairman of the Executive Committee based in New York City. Mr. Cisneros is also the Founder and Chairman of the CityView companies, which is a partner in building more than 90 communities in 13 states, building more than 7,000 homes with a total value of over $5 billion. In 1981, Mr. Cisneros became the first Hispanic-American mayor of a major U.S. city, San Antonio, Texas. During his four terms as Mayor, he helped rebuild the city’s economic base and spurred the creation of jobs through massive infrastructure and downtown improvements. In 1992, President Clinton appointed Mr. Cisneros to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Ifeoma Ebo is an experienced Urban Designer, Strategist, and Founding Director of Creative Urban Alchemy where she consults on equitable design and sustainable development strategy for city governments and civic institutions internationally. The diversity of her 20-year career emphasizes a commitment to social justice and design excellence. She currently leads urban design and predevelopment initiatives for the Office of Neighborhood Strategies at HPD and previously led interagency design and built environment initiatives exploring the use of public space design to address community safety and social justice in marginalized communities across NYC for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. She serves on Advisory Boards for the Mayor of Helsingborg, Sweden H22 Smart City Initiative, Association for Community Design, and the BlackSpace Urbanist Collective.

Dr. Bill Thomas is a physician, professor, entrepreneur, playwright, and performer whose wide-ranging work explores the terrain of human aging. His dedication to culture change and innovations for well-being led the Wall Street Journal to highlight Dr. Thomas as one of the nation’s “top 10 innovators” changing the future of retirement in America and US News and World Report named him to its list of “America’s best leaders.”

He began his career in the field in the early 1990s when he co-founded The Eden Alternative (with Jude Meyers). This model humanized nursing homes using Care Partner teams that work to enhance the well-being of staff and residents by eliminating the three plagues: loneliness, helplessness, and boredom. In the early 2000’s he launched The Green House Project which Provider Magazine called the “pinnacle of culture change.” In 2007, Dr. Thomas developed the Senior ER model of care in partnership with the Trinity Health system.

Also in 2007, Dr. Thomas co-founded (with journalist Kavan Peterson) ChangingAging.org a live/digital platform designed to address the endemic ageism within American culture. In 2012 his one-act play “Play What’s Not There” premiered at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The play using magical realism to explore the life challenges physicians confront while juggling practice, self-fulfillment and family. In 2013, he starred in the award-winning documentary Alive Inside. The film’s “joyous cinematic exploration of music’s capacity to reawaken our souls” won the 2014 “People’s Choice Award” at Sundance.

In 2014, Dr. Thomas collaborated with Kavan Peterson, to create the ChangingAging Tour. The ChangingAging Tour directly addressed damaging myths about aging and featured two non-fiction theater performances in a “pro-aging festival” over the next four years this tour performed in over 130 cities across North America.

Hundreds of conversations held during the ChangingAging Tour had a profound impact on the path Dr. Thomas’ career as he learned that an overwhelming number of people, living all over the country, shared a primary concern; housing. This discovery led to his latest mission: research and improve housing that builds resilience and independence so that people of all ages and abilities can live their best lives on their own terms.

Stephanie Firestone is a global thought leader advancing livable communities for all people of all ages and abilities. She leads AARP International’s global initiatives to promote enabling, equitable, and multigenerational housing and communities, and collaborates with international institutions such as the World Health Organization—leading efforts such as AARP’s engagement in the Decade of Healthy Ageing. As a 2015-2016 Health & Aging Policy Fellow, Stephanie worked with the American Planning Association and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, helping local leaders think regionally about how to create more inclusive communities and expand affordable housing opportunities for vulnerable residents. Stephanie has led international social and environmental justice efforts, founding Israel’s first Jewish-Arab environmental nonprofit organization and coordinating that country’s sustainability agenda, including representing the country’s efforts toward the World Summit on Sustainable Development at the United Nations General Assembly. Stephanie holds a Master of Urban & Environmental Planning degree from the University of Virginia.

A catalyst for positive change through design, Esther Greenhouse is a built environment strategist and environmental gerontologist.  People, places, communities, and organizations benefit from her expertise in the impact of the built environment on all types of people, especially older adults. Considered a visionary for her unique and beneficial perspective, Ms. Greenhouse is the creator of the concept “Enabling Design”--a powerful approach to design and planning which harnesses the features of the built environment to enable all people to thrive. 

As a consultant for AARP International, she is creating a quantum leap in age-friendly housing and multigenerational communities through her facilitation and initiative development work. Ms. Greenhouse also serves as the Strategic Director for one of the first Age Friendly Centers for Excellence.  At Cornell University, she is shaping the field as an industry scholar for the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures and an adjunct lecturer in the department of Design & Environmental Analysis.  She contributes to successful community planning with workshops and consulting nationwide, and co-authored the American Planning Association’s Aging in Community Policy Guide.  Her expertise was requested for such projects as the book Independent for Life, for two PBS series on design for aging, and for the design of the nation’s first senior-focused emergency department. In the building industry, she has been recognized as an award-winning instructor and leader in Universal Design and aging in place by the National Association of Home Builders.