Architect Amos Brandeis is the owner and manager of an international urban and regional planning firm based in Israel. He is Ambassador of the International Riverfoundation (Australia) and former Chairman of Israel Planners Association (2006 – 2012).

His firm is involved in planning of many urban and regional plans on the international, national, regional and local level. Among them cities, city centers, urban renewal, neighborhoods, villages, sea-shores, ports, tourism complexes, rivers, schools, agricultural projects, etc. Amos Brandeis has been awarded over fifteen prizes in the course of his professional career and academic studies including the 2011 “ISOCARP Award for Excellence” (Strategic Planning Category, for planning the Bedouin City Rahat), and the “2003 International Riverprize” (for the Alexander River Restoration Project, a unique collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians, regarding the restoration of a polluted cross-border river).

Amso served as a planner, consultant, speaker and/or workshop leader in many countries over five continents. He now leads the international Congress Team, with its members from 13 countries, in delivering the scientific content of the 2014 ISOCARP Congress.

Abdelwehab Alwehab

 Alexander Antonov is an urban and regional planner in the Moscow Regional Urban Planning Scientific Research Institute. He graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute, Faculty of Urban Planning in 1983.

From 1983-2000 he worked in leading state-owned planning companies in Russia: GIPROGOR (state institute for city planning), Central Scientific and Research Institute of Urban Planning  for Regional and Local Authorities, in the field of master planning, regional planning  schemes and strategies and transportation schemes development, and GIS implementation in planning process. He worked for Samara, Kaluga, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Udmurtia, Khanty-Mansy and other regions; as well as the cities of Vologda, Jaroslavl, Grozny, Novorossiysk and others.

Alexander has been working since 2000 in his current position. He worked out masterplans and zoning rules for more than 20 municipalities in Moscow region as a chief architect of the project. He currently works as part of the team responsible for the Spatial Development Scheme of the whole Moscow region.

Alexander was a co-founder of the Russian GIS Association in 1994, and a publisher and editor-in-chief of the first Russian GIS magazine “GIS-review” in 1994-2001.  In 1997-2002, he organized a series of URBIS conferences (Urban planning and Informational Systems) in Moscow, Ufa and Krasnodar.

Alexander is recognized as an expert in urban planning by the Russian Union of Architects. In 2010 he was one of the co-founders of the Russian Urban Planners Association (RUPA). Alexander’s professional interests are participatory planning, GIS and Remote sensing data in urban planning, regional and urban spatial development strategies.

Nageeb Elhoweris

Mohamed Nageeb Suleiman Elhoweris is working as Associate Professor of Architecture and Planning in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Khartoum (Sudan). Arch. M. Nageeb is an experienced Architect\Urban Planner, and an urban designer with more than 29 years of professional and senior management experience.

Nageeb graduated from the Institute of Architecture and Planning (Ion Mincu) of Bucharest – Romania in June 1984 with a professional qualification in Architecture and regional and town planning, holding a master’s degree in physical planning from University of Khartoum in 1992 and a postgraduate diploma in housing, building, planning and management from IHS of Rotterdam in 1992. Nageeb’s career began in local government working with the State Ministry of Planning and Public Utilities (MPPU) – Khartoum State, working with local communities in many planning projects. Afterwards, Nageeb worked in the private sector as a consulting planner for many large firms.  As a core planning team member, he contributed to major planning projects, specifically the structure plan of Khartoum KSP2000 with the famous firm of Doxiadis of Athens.

In 1993, Nageeb was a lecturer at the Architecture University of Khartoum, and was promoted to assistant professor in 2003; teaching subjects such as urban planning, land use planning, planning theory, housing, and research methods in urban planning for bachelor and post-graduate students at the University of Khartoum and others. From September 2009 – current, he was appointed as the Head of the Department of Planning and Urban Design.

Nageeb is a partner and principal of Badya & Al Estidama (B&EST) for building consultancy, a Khartoum–Sudan based private firm that specializes in urban planning, urban design, health, office and residential buildings. The office has been working since 1984 and is known for a holistic design approach, addressing all topics in the life-cycle of a project: planning, urban design, site-development, architectural design and detail planning. The office has acquired rich experience in Sudan and abroad (in Eretria and Saudi Arabia) and many awards were won by the office through architectural competitions.

Lorraine Gonzalez

Lorraine Gonzales has worked in the land use planning profession for twenty years. She received her Masters of Urban Planning with a Design Certificate from the University of Washington. She has worked in the private and public sector in the state of Oregon and in the public sector in the state of Washington.

Lorraine has experience in both urban and rural land use planning and has been a project manager and essential technical and advisory team member on significant projects, including a number of comprehensive and master plans for new urban areas, a ski resort community, and light rail transit oriented developments. She has also participated in the development of pedestrian and bicycle master plans, transportation project plans and public facilities plans. She is experienced in processing land use reviews and development permits for design review of commercial, industrial, multi-family and mixed use developments.

Her experience in the governmental field involves constant coordination among government agencies on the local, regional, state, and federal levels. She is well versed in public involvement process which is an essential and primary goal of the Oregon Statewide Planning Goals.

Lorraine is currently employed as Senior Planner for Clackamas County (383,857 population) which is one of three urban counties in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan area (2.2 million people). She has attended the Portugal, China, and Russia congresses and served on the 2010 Sitges V Urban Planning Advisory Team. She is also currently serving as an ISOCARP USA delegate.

Zeynep Gunay

Zeynep Gunay is an urban planner and associate professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning of Istanbul Technical University (ITU). She holds a bachelor degree in City and Regional Planning from the Middle East Technical University (2001). She was awarded diploma with commendation from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (Rotterdam) for the completion of Inner City Development and Housing in Transitional Economies Programme with MATRA Fellowship (2003). Her first MSc degree was a specialisation on urban conservation (ITU, 2004) and her second on regeneration studies (Cardiff Un, 2007). Her PhD was on the sustainability of historic landscapes within the context of neoliberal urbanism. In 2013 she became associate professor.

She was a visiting lecturer in Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Institut für Europäische Urbanistik (2013); she was recently appointed as a guest lecturer for Mundus Urbano MSc in Urban Development to coordinate the module of “socio-economic and cultural challenges” in Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Her major areas of interest are urban conservation and urban regeneration/renewal theories and policies. Through her scholarly works, she questions the vicious relationship between culture vs development and conservation vs regeneration with reference to neoliberal planning agenda; and she explores sustainable heritage management methodologies. Through her taught courses, she also investigates diverse dynamics in the transformation of urban systems (housing, waterfronts, public space, cultural industries, community realm), with a specific interest upon urbanisation trends and threats in diverse world urban regions.

She has several international and national research and implementation projects including the Prizren Municipal Development Plan under the supervision of UN-Habitat (2012) and UNESCO supported Istanbul Historic Peninsula Conservation Project (2003), which was awarded a Medal in Europa Nostra Awards 2004. She was also awarded with the Emerald Literati Outstanding Reviewer in 2012. She is the member of ICOMOS – National Committee of Turkey and national delegate of ISOCARP.

Martina Juvara

Martina is a leading master planner and urban designer with major international infrastructure and planning experience, particularly in Europe and the Mediterranean. Before leading URBAN Silence, a new consultancy focussed on masterplanning for prosperity, Martina has led teams at SKM Colin Buchanan, Arup and Llewelyn Davies. She has recently completed the regeneration and development strategy for the centre of Nicosia and for the industrial area of SOPAZ (Cyprus) and has provided essential contribution to the master plan for the city of Damascus (Syria).

Martina is committed to use infrastructure investment to increase people’s well-being: her work is based on linking people and investment with their city – finding the right balance so that everybody can gain. Recent projects include the strategic master planning of major stations of London (Tottenham Hale, Euston Station and Liverpool Street), strategies for Newcastle Walker Riverside industrial area and the identification of options for other marine and port areas.

She won the London Planning Award in 2003 for her strategy for Ilford town centre in east London and her projects and thinking has been presented at major conferences in the UK, Russia, Australia.

Olusola Olufemi

Olusola Olufemi has a PhD in Town and Regional Planning from the School of Architecture and Planning, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, South Africa. Olusola is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Olusola’s research and teaching career began in 1986 and she has taught both at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Departments of Geography, Urban and Regional Planning and Women Studies at various Universities in Nigeria, South Africa and Canada. She was a member of the Gender Inclusive and Housing Policy Working Group, at St John’s University, Canada, and was a visiting professor in 2013 at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Olusola has worked variously as a Research Fellow (Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Ibadan, Nigeria); and Chief Researcher (Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa). She has also worked in various capacities on several research and consultancy projects with international organisations including the Department for International Development (DFID), UNICEF; Olusola has also served as a leader, e.g. she was the first coordinator of Women in Planning Network of the Commonwealth Association of Planners.

Olusola served as journal reviewer for the Journals of Planning Theory and Practice, the International Journal of Housing Policy and Development Southern African Journal and as a scientific reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation, National Research Programme on Sustainable Development of the Built Environment, Switzerland. She has been published in peer-reviewed journals, encyclopaedia, and books. Olusola participated in the Isocarp Young Planners Program, presented papers at ISOCARP congresses, volunteered with World Vision, and she was a recipient of the IKEA grant and the Gerd Albers award. Her areas of interests include: Urban and Regional Planning, Housing, Homelessness, Gender and Food Security. Olusola is a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners and Nigerian Institute of Management and she is presently involved in planning education and mentoring of planners.

Gabriel Pascariu

Gabriel Pascariu is a Romanian architect who graduated in 1982 from the -“Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning in Bucharest and worked afterwards for more than a decade in the Planning Department of a National Research and Design Institute, where he was also General Manager in 2001-2002. Since 1997 he has been teaching territorial and strategic planning, urban regeneration and other related issues at the Faculty of Urban Planning of “Ion Mincu” University. Since 2003 he coordinates the master programme for Territorial Planning and Regional Development. He is author of a Ph.D. thesis in human geography on “The Structure and Dynamic of Human Settlements Systems” and he took part or coordinated the last 20 years projects at local and territorial scales and on various aspects. Since 1997 he acted also as a consultant for local and regional development and worked in different projects for technical assistance to local or central authorities. He took part recently in the twinning project providing Capacity Building for Regional Development in the Republic of Moldova, in the ESPON research project (GROSSE; www.espon.eu), and is currently coordinating a study for the revision of the National Territorial Plan.

Gabriel is a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Urbanismul – new series” (http://www.rur.ro/publicatii), he also published over 100 articles in various publications and is author or co-author of more than 15 published books and scientific reports. He coordinated a team of young planners who won the 1st prize in the international spatial planning competition “The Dniepr Pearls” in Kiev 2012. Since 2011 he is member of the Higher Board of the Romanian Register of Urban Planners and in 2013 was elected President of the Romanian Association of Urban Planners.

Guy Perry

Guy Perry founded IN-VI in 2000 to develop best practices in transition markets. He works from the scale of a room to a region and focuses on the well being of humans and their interface with the environment. He has planned and led the development of Europe’s largest new district of the 21st century, Central Europe’s largest urban regeneration and conceived new development patterns for urban extensions in Brazil and North Africa. His work has received the highest accolades from ISOCARP, ULI, FIABCI, the Bloomberg International Property Awards and the Architectural Review.

Prior to founding IN-VI, Guy was Senior Vice President of TrizecHahn, overseeing the development and design of new communities and mixed-use projects throughout Europe. Guy has also served as Vice President at HOK and worked seven years with Kajima Corporation in Tokyo, Paris and Brussels. Early in his career, Guy worked on the design of the Barcelona Olympics.

Guy has presented keynote speeches on six continents at venues ranging from the United Nations to ULI regarding strategies for sustainable and profitable development. He participated in the ISOCARP Shantou UPAT,  and was the lead Jury member for the ISOCARP organized international competition for the eastward expansion of that city, He was initiator and senior coordinator of the Smithsonian Institutions first Emmy Award winning documentary film: Dream Window – Reflections on the Japanese Garden. Over the past few years, Guy has fostered design and development studios at the University of Hong Kong, MIT and Harvard University.  He holds two masters degrees from Harvard University.

Brigitte Schmelzer

Brigitte Schmelzer has a well-regarded reputation in the field of landscape architecture and urban design. She is working as a free consultant in interdisciplinary teams, as a member of the Advisory Committee for the city of Esslingen and as a jury member for competitions and as a speaker.

From 1982 -2007 she managed her own firm the Planungsgruppe LandschaftsArchitektur + Ökologie in Stuttgart. In the broad field of landscape architecture her team worked for private clients, city and regional administrations, and reached a new professional standard in: ecological survey, environmental assessment, mitigation projects, landscape- and city planning on all levels, design of open spaces, parks, interdisciplinary projects, and competitions.

The team was successful at innovative projects which covered large planning regions like the “Biotopnetwork” for the Region of Stuttgart and the “Regional Landscape Park,” covering 120 000 hectares.

She was Vice President in the chamber of Architects Baden/Wuerttemberg from 1998-2004. Brigitte has been teaching as a Professor at the Agrarian University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim and the Academy of Arts in Stuttgart. The DAAD lectureship in Tokyo 1998 and the project works as an expert in China 2003 and 2006 increased her international experience.

Brigitte’s educational background is manifold, starting as a designer at the famous Folkwang Schule in Essen, a second study in Agrarian Science and in-work training with the renewed Landscape Architects Valentien & Valentien Stuttgart/Munich.

Marcela Villa Luna

Hongyang Wang (BSc and MSc in planning and human geography, Nanjing and PhD in urban planning, Liverpool) is a professor of urban planning and design at Nanjing University, formerly the Central University of China. He researches and teaches planning philosophy and methodology, comprehensive planning, urbanization and urban-rural integration. He has been chair for preparing more than 40 plans, including regional, strategic and master plans for over ten major cities and regions/provinces in eastern, middle and western China in areas with a population of five to forty million population. Many of these plans were awarded provincial, national and international planning prizes including the 2012 ISOCARP Awards for Excellence.

As the Co-director of the Sino-French Centre for Urban, Regional and Planning Studies by Nanjing University and University Paris 12, he is active in international cooperation between Chinese and International planning communities of both academics and practitioners. He was the Chinese Chair for European FP7 project Europe-China Urban and Regional Bi-continental research Scheme (FP7-230824 ECURBS) and is currently a member of the UN-Habitat Ad-Hoc Expert Group for International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning. He has also worked with ISOCARP on UPAT Shantou, China and UPAT Tlalepantla, Mexico.