Speakers
A New Education
Rudolf Isler, Zurich University of Teacher EducationRudolf Isler was born and educated in Zurich, Switzerland. He holds a degree in Secondary Education and taught at this level for several years in Zurich. He later obtained a Master of Arts degree in Educational Science, Psychology and Special Education, and was a Teachers Trainer at various Teachers Training Colleges and at the University of Zurich. In 1998 Mr Isler obtained his PhD in Educational Science at the University of Zurich.
He was a Project Leader in the establishment of the Zurich University of Teacher Education (development of the education curriculum, development and implementation of postgraduate studies for teachers). Since 2003 he has been a Professor of Education at the Zurich University of Teacher Education in the Department of Instruction Processes and Media Education. His recent research projects and publications (www.rudolfisler.ch) have focused on history and philosophy of education, social change and education, and on teacher education. He was a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego in 2004, and held a guest professorship at the Freie Universität in Berlin in 2005 and 2006.
Urs Doerig, University of Teacher Education Thurgau
CV coming
Edith Ackermann, M.I.T. School of Architecture
Edith K. Ackermann is a Honorary Professor of Developmental Psychology, at the University of Aix-Marseille 1, France. Currently a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Siena, Department of Communication, she teaches graduate students, conducts research, and consults for companies, institutions, and organizations interested in the intersections between learning, teaching, design, and digital technologies. Previously, Ackermann was a Senior Research Scientist at MERL - Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory, Cambridge, MA; an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media laboratory, in Cambridge, MA; and a Scientific Collaborator at the Centre International d'Epistémologie Génétique, under the direction of Jean Piaget, Geneva. She started her career as a Junior Faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Deborah Meier, New York University, Steinhardt School of Education
Deborah Meier is currently on the faculty at New York University's
Steinhardt School of Education. She spent more than four decades as a
public school teacher and principal She was the designer and
leader of four highly successful elementary and secondary schools in New York City and Boston, and designed new ways to use large public high schools to serve smaller schools of choice. She has written many
articles and books on her experiences. In 1987 she was the
recipient of a MacArthur ":genius" grant for her innovative
educational work.
A New Architecture
Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA
Jane Weinzapfel was raised in Tucson, Arizona. She received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arizona's School of Architecture. After graduating, she moved to the Boston area where she developed her career as an architect. In 1994, she was elected to the College of Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2002 she was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.
After many years working with a large architecture and planning group, Jane began independent practice in 1980, and in 1982 she and Andrea Leers founded Leers Weinzapfel Associates in Boston, Massachusetts. Work of the firm has received national and regional awards including the Gateway Building/Chiller Plant at the University of Pennsylvania, and the MBTA Operations Control Center of Boston.
She taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and Planning from 1974 to 1976. She taught as a Visiting Critic at the University of Arizona School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 1996 and 1999 and serves on the School's Advisory Board. She has been a juror and speaker at numerous universities in the United States and abroad. She is on the Board of Overseers for the Boston Architectural Center.
Jane has special expertise in transportation, and urban infrastructure. She has been an active member of the Women's Transportation Seminar for many years and served as a former Director. She served on the Mayor's Transportation Advisory Commission for the City of Boston, and the Mayor's Task Force on Government Center Plaza. She was twice a Director and was on the Executive Committee of the Boston Society of Architects and is the current Vice President/President Elect for the Chapter. She serves as speaker and juror for the American Institute of Architects' international, national and regional Design Awards Programs. She served on the Editorial Board of Architecture Boston Magazine and an Advisory Board for the Harvard Design Magazine
Umberto Dindo, AIA
Umberto Dindo, AIA, was born and educated in Zurich, Switzerland. He has degrees in Architecture and Town Planning. He is Principal of Dindo Architect P.C. in New York City. The office has done residential, and commercial work, and school buildings in and around New York.
For the past several years, he has been Chair and Co-Chair of the AIA New Chapters Committee on Architecture for Education. In 2007, he received the Chapters Vice Presidential Citation for Design Excellence. He has been a guest critic at the NJ Institute of Technology and a juror for the 2007 BSA/AIANY K-12 Design Awards. Recent publications include “A Lofty Goal” in the August 2007 issue of the American School and University Magazine.
Further information
Frank Locker PhD, AIA, REFP
Frank M. Locker, PhD, AIA, REFP, Vice President of DeJONG, leads visioning, educational specifications, master planning, equity, and school restructuring projects. An architect, former educator, and trained facilitator, Dr. Locker has more than thirty years of education and school facilities planning experience.
Honored as the 'Planner of the Year' by the Council of Educational Facilities Planners, Dr. Locker is a frequent speaker at national and regional educational facilities conferences. Topics have included Team Teaching/Integrated Learning, Flexible Facilities, Small Schools, Relationship-Based Schools, and Designs to Support Constructivist Learning. His school planning articles have appeared in CEFPI Educational Planner and Designshare. He has been a frequent juror on design and honor awards competitions, including the CEFPI MacConnell Award jury, several Planner of the Year juries, and the Designshare/School Construction News Design Awards jury.
Further information
Mark Ziegler, Portfolio Manager Schoolbuildings, Public Real Estate Management (IMMO), City of Zürich
Mark Ziegler (1962, Edmonton CDN), studied Architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Diploma 1988. Worked as design architect, later project developer in various private firms 1988-1999. Project manager in the Municipal Building Agency of the City of Zürich (AHB) 1999-2002. Currently Portfolio Manager for Schools in the Public Real Estate Management (IMMO), City of Zürich. Father of two children. Mark Ziegler has been involved with the evolution in public schools since 2000. In 2004, based on his experience, he wrote a compilation of standards for schoolbuildings as a supplement to space programs in order to help architects to design modern schools.
Katherine Craven, MA Building Authority
Katherine P. Craven was appointed as the first Executive Director of the
Massachusetts School Building Authority by State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill
in November, 2004. In this role, Katherine has built a new state agency
responsible for the management, financing and auditing of not only the $11B
in debt to which the Commonwealth is committed for over 1150 state-financed
local school construction projects, but also for the largest scale revision
since 1948 of the rules and regulations governing the state's role in local
school construction. In the first five years of its creation, the School
Building Authority under Katherine's management will finance over $5B for
428 projects formerly waiting years for funding under the old program. Funded
by 1 penny of state sales tax receipts, the Authority will continue
reimbursing communities hundreds of millions of dollars a year for another
728 projects currently receiving long term debt service assistance. Under
Katherine's leadership, the Authority has developed a plan to eliminate an
inherited backlog of over 800 audits of school construction projects, and to
implement a reformed, competitive, needs-based state school construction
grant program emphasizing increased pre-design planning and construction
oversight and auditing for local school construction. These reforms will be
aimed at protecting the state investment of $2.5B for local school
construction between 2008 and 2012