Speakers

Mr. Abrams leads efforts to link PWD’s programs and policies with those of other City departments, state and federal agencies, and nonprofit partners. His team is actively reviewing policies, codes, and programmatic functions and making recommendations for changes to ensure the success of Philadelphia’s innovative Combined Sewer Overflow Long-Term Control Plan, "Green City, Clean Waters." Mr. Abrams has worked in the Office of Watersheds for ten years and was instrumental in the early demonstration projects and partnerships that established many of the green stormwater infrastructure initiatives that are now the cornerstone of the "Green City, Clean Waters" plan. Mr. Abrams is recognized as a certified planner by the American Institute of Certified Planners and is a graduate in City and Regional Planning from the Ohio State University.

www.phillywatersheds.org

Chris Bartlett is the Executive Director of the William Way Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center in Philadelphia (http://www.waygay.org).  For over 20 years, he has been an innovative thinker and leader in technology-driven community organizing, having led the SafeGuards Gay Men’s Health Project, the LGBT Community Assessment, and the national LGBT Leadership Initiative. He has been deeply interested in the power of social networks to impact communities, and has presented his ideas, including his "Social Network for the Dead" and "Secret Mentoring" at the LGBT and Gay Men’s Health Summits, the #140conf,  Ignite Philly, and Bar Camp Philly. You can find him at @harveymilk on Twitter. In 2011, he returns for his second year as host of TEDxPhilly.

www.waygay.org

Dr. Jeffrey Brenner is a family physician who has worked in Camden, New Jersey, for the past 12 years in a solo-practice, urban family medicine office that provides full-spectrum family health services to a largely Hispanic, Medicaid population. Dr. Brenner is the Director of the Institute of Urban Health at Cooper Hospital where he looks for innovative ways to improve the health of urban, underserved communities. Recognizing the need for a new way for hospitals, providers and community residents to collaborate on health, he founded and is the executive director of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, working to build an integrated health delivery model to provide better care for Camden City residents.

www.camdenhealth.org

Gregory Corbin is an award-winning international poet, motivational speaker, activist, teacher, and Founder/Executive Director of the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement. A Philadelphia native, Corbin is a prominent community leader that has extensive experience working with and mentoring youth throughout Philadelphia and beyond. He has been featured at schools, conferences, festivals, and venues across the country, including #140Edu and the City of Philadelphia’s "Unlitter Us" campaign. He is also an accomplished artist who has performed from South Carolina to South African, sharing stages with the likes of India Arie, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Saul Williams, Sonia Sanchez and many other powerful artists of today’s movement. Corbin is a recipient of the 2011 Focus on Prevention Awards from Drexel University’s Center for Prevention of School-Aged Violence, and one of 76 Creative Connectors in Philadelphia.

phillyyouthpoets.org

Nijmie Dzurinko is the Executive Director and an Organizer with the Philadelphia Student Union, an organization that develops youth leaders on the front lines of school reform. She is also a co-founder and executive committee member of the Media Mobilizing Project which exists to build the media and communications infrastructure for a movement to end poverty, led by poor and working people, united across color lines.

home.phillystudentunion.org

Janet Echelman builds living, breathing sculpture environments that respond to the forces of nature — wind, water and light— and become inviting focal points for civic life.
Exploring the potential of unlikely materials, from fishing net to atomized water particles, Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create her permanent sculpture at the scale of buildings. Experiential in nature, the result is sculpture that shifts from being an object you look at, to something you can get lost in.
Recent prominent works include "Her Secret is Patience", which spans two city blocks in downtown Phoenix, "Water Sky Garden", which premiered for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and "She Changes", which transformed a waterfront plaza in Porto, Portugal. Her newest commission creates a "Zone of Recomposure" in the new Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport. Upcoming projects include the remaking of Dilworth Plaza in front of Philadelphia City Hall — turning it into a garden of dry-mist.

www.echelman.com

Filmmaker and musical composer Jon Foy started planning his documentary about the mysterious Toynbee tiles with artist Justin Duerr a decade ago, and began filming in 2005 after dropping out of film school in Austin, TX. While working on the film, the Philadelphia native sustained himself by cleaning houses and participating in medical research studies. A seasoned rock musician, Foy taught himself the art of film score composition for Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, and also scored 2008′s The Chinese Room. Resurrect Dead is his directorial debut.

www.resurrectdead.com

Denice Frohman is the Program Director of the Philly Youth Poetry Movement and an international poet, lyricist and educator. She has facilitated poetry workshops in high schools, colleges, youth conferences, shelters, and cultural institutions across the Northeast, helping young people use their voice to empower themselves and their community at large. Frohman is also an accomplished poet who was a member of the 2010 Philadelphia Slam Team and has headlined shows from Michigan, to New York, all the way to Toronto, Canada. She can currently be seen in Philadelphia’s city-wide "UnLitter Us" Campaign, which uses spoken word to raise awareness about the impact of litter in our neighborhoods. Dedicated to improving communities within Philadelphia, Frohman has seen the transformative power of poetry in the lives of teens, and believes that we must support safe spaces for expression.

phillyyouthpoets.org

Through a stroke of good luck, Amy Hillier learned GIS and spatial statistical analysis skills while earning her MSW and PhD in social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Social Work. She currently teaches introductory GIS courses at Penn in the city planning, urban studies, social work, and public health programs and serves as a formal and informal GIS consultant to numerous Philadelphia-based nonprofits. Her research focuses on the spatial analysis of public health disparities, including access to healthful foods and exposure to outdoor advertising. She has also used historical GIS methods to research mortgage redlining (http://cml.upenn.edu) and W.E.B. Du Bois’ classic book, The Philadelphia Negro (www.mappingdubois.org).

www.design.upenn.edu/people/hillier_amy

Yael Lehmann currently serves as Executive Director of The Food Trust, a nonprofit founded in 1992, which strives to make healthy food available to all. The Food Trust’s work has been recognized by First Lady Michelle Obama, and described by Time Magazine as being a "remarkable success." The Food Trust has been the recipient of many national and local awards including the Nonprofit Organization Award from the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations for fostering intergroup harmony and cultural understanding among communities and the Big Vision Award from Philadelphia’s CityPaper.

Before becoming Executive Director of The Food Trust in 2006, Yael served as Associate Director and Deputy Director since 2001. In her tenure at The Food Trust, Yael has directed the growth of the organization’s farmers’ markets, nutrition education programs, food retail development initiatives, and other programs to promote access to affordable, nutritious food in low-income communities. Yael has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Yael is the mother of an eight-year-old boy and she’s the bass player for “Happy Accident,” a band that plays locally in Philadelphia and includes her husband Blake and Brian "Bucky" Lang.

www.thefoodtrust.org

Diana Lind is an urbanist and writer. She is the editor in chief of Forefront, a new digital media project launching in January 2012.

Diana was previously editor in chief and publisher of Next American City, an urban policy magazine and non-profit based in Philadelphia. Described by The New York Times as "A subtle plan to change the world," Next American City publishes stories of planning, governance and cultural best practices in cities, as well as investigates obstacles to creating more socially, economically and environmentally sustainable communities. During her tenure at Next American City, she produced the urban informatics conference, Open Cities, and the urban leadership conference, Next American Vanguard. In addition, she hosted the monthly podcast Metro Matters in collaboration with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

In 2010, Diana left Next American City to help launch New Cities Foundation, a new Geneva-based non-profit organization with the mission of aligning corporate, public and civic sector leaders to improve urban life. In 2011, Diana was a Van Alen Institute fellow, and joined the advisory committee of the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster and the program committee of the Ed Bacon Foundation.

Born in Manhattan in 1981, Diana has received degrees from Cornell University (B.A., English) and Columbia University (M.F.A., Creative Writing). She is the author of Brooklyn Modern: Architecture, Interiors & Design (Rizzoli, 2008), which is in its third printing. She has published her writing in The New York Times, Architectural Record, Grist, Paper, and many other publications.

She currently lives in Philadelphia’s Washington Square West neighborhood.

dianalindindex.com

Writer. Canning enthusiast. Jar collector. All terms that can describe Marisa McClellan. Born under the Hollywood sign and raised in Portland, OR, she now lives in the town that William Penn built, writing about local food and teaching her fellow Philadelphians just what to do with their garden abundance.

When she isn’t manning the canning pot or haunting farmers markets, she can be found writing cookbooks and blogging about canning at Food in Jars. Her first cookbook will be published by Running Press in the spring of 2012.

She has a BA from Whitman College and an MA from St. Joe’s. She is also currently writing for Serious Eats, Food Network’s FN Dish, Grid Philly, Mrs. Wages and the Cuisinart blog.

www.foodinjars.com

Ethan Nguyen is a health researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on utilizing community networks and social media to improve health care access for immigrant and minority populations. Awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 2006, he has conducted ethnographic research work among refugee communities in Europe and Australia, with academic presentations in Prague, Paris, and Sydney. Most recently, Ethan completed work on a 3 year project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that engaged limited-English-proficient immigrant elders in sharing their experiences of navigating the health care system. Ethan has been invited to give lectures on his research at educational institutions such as Yale University, University of Florida, Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent publications appeared in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health and the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Ethan serves on multiple community organizations including the American Cancer Society Asian Advisory Board and the Hepatitis B Foundation HBV Task Force. He is appointed by Mayor Nutter to serve on the Mayor’s Advisory Board for the Mayor’s Office of Community Services. Ethan is a graduate of Vassar College and currently lives in Philadelphia.

linkedin.com/in/ethannguyen

Jennifer Pahlka is the founder and executive director of Code for America, which works with talented web professionals and cities around the country to promote public service and reboot government. She spent eight years at CMP Media where she led the Game Group, responsible for GDC, Game Developer magazine, and Gamasutra.com; there she also launched the Independent Games Festival and served as executive director of the International Game Developers Association. Recently, she ran the Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 events for TechWeb and co-chaired the successful Web 2.0 Expo. She is a graduate of Yale University and lives in Oakland, CA with her daughter and six chickens.

codeforamerica.org

The Philly Youth Poetry Movement is a non-profit organization committed to helping Philadelphia youth discover the power of their voices through spoken word and literary expression. Founded in 2006, PYPM provides a safe environment for youth ages 13-19 to use poetry as a vehicle to express and advocate for themselves, explore their identity(ies), enhance literacy and critical thinking skills, and become agents of social change. Through free weekly workshops, monthly slams, national/local performance opportunities, mentoring and community service, we provide a space where youth use their voices to bring about both personal and social transformation.

phillyyouthpoets.org

R. Eric Thomas (@oureric) is a playwright, teaching artist and storyteller. He is the author of four produced plays, including "The Spectator" (Run of the Mill Theater Company, Baltimore) and "The Affair" (Late Night Theater, Manhattan).

He is currently workshopping three plays: "Lost Boy", a drama about the fallout from a gay-bashing at a small college; "Destination", a modern-day adaptation of Chekhov’s "Three Sisters"; and "Divers", a comedy about a bachelor party in Provincetown.

Eric has read or performed for "Live at Kelly Writers House" on WXPN, Jaime Fountaine’s Second Stories at the Dive, Rant-o-Wheel, Queer Ignite, Superheroes Who Are Super!, Queer Memoir, the WHYY Connections Festival and Crush Comedy’s Tell Me A Story. He is a frequent storyteller and host for Philadelphia’s First Person Arts Story Slams, at which he has competed in the Grand Slam three times. His writing has appeared in Columbia University’s The Collection and The Q Review. Most recently, he opened for comedian Kelli Dunham at New York’s historic Stonewall. His solo show, "Will You Accept This Friend Request?", four true stories about making connections and making mistakes in the age of Facebook, premieres November 14 and 15 as part of the First Person Festival. Facebook.com/R.Eric.T

enormouslyawkward.blogspot.com

Susan is a partner at the Philadelphia-based, internationally renowned landscape architecture firm OLIN. She is particularly skilled in designing within the opportunities and constraints of the urban realm. Utilizing her expertise in engineering and advanced construction technologies, in concert with sensitivity to context and a reverence for the authenticity of the urban condition, her landscapes celebrate the unique energy, history and personality of the people who use them and the cities they inhabit. The integration of art within landscape is a key underpinning of Susan’s design work—she has collaborated with artists locally and internationally to incorporate evocative and often interactive art installations that speak to each site’s culture. Recent projects include the Anne d’Harnoncourt Sculpture Garden and Dilworth Plaza in Philadelphia; Johns Hopkins Hospital Entry Courtyard and Garden in Baltimore; and Geiger Park in upstate New York.

Susan is committed to furthering the advancement of the landscape architecture profession, teaching regularly at the University of Pennsylvania and lecturing across the U.S. She co-authored the book Green Roof Systems: A Guide to the Planning, Design and Construction of Building Over Structure, a definitive reference for planning, building and maintaining green roofs in the urban environment. Susan earned her undergraduate degree in landscape architecture from the University of Wisconsin, and her Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

www.theolinstudio.com

Inga Saffron, the architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has been writing about urban design issues for over a decade. She has reviewed some of the most memorable new projects of the era— including Gehry’s Disney Hall, Koolhaas’ Seattle Library and New York’s High Line. But her primary interest is in writing about the less-heralded places that people encounter in their daily lives—offices and casinos, parking garages and parks. Inga became a design critic after working for many years as a news reporter, and she melds a critic’s sensibility with a reporter’s ability to ferret out a story. For her, that story is Philadelphia’s struggle to maintain its urbanity, livability and distinctiveness in the face of pressure from a homogenizing, car-oriented culture. She writes about that effort in a weekly column, "Changing Skyline," and has been influential in shaping the public conversation in Philadelphia about design and planning issues. Her advocacy was instrumental in convincing city officials to focus on Philadelphia’s neglected Delaware waterfront. She has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize three times since 2004, and received the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award in 2010.

Before becoming the Inquirer’s architecture critic in 2000, Inga spent several years as a foreign correspondent for the paper, based in Belgrade and Moscow. While abroad, she covered two wars and witnessed the destruction of Sarajevo and Grozny, two events that strongly influenced her thinking about cities. After returning to the U.S., Inga published the cultural and environmental history, Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World’s Most Coveted Delicacy. She has also written for Metropolis and Dwell magazines.

As a Loeb Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Inga plans to delve deeper into how cities can retain their distinct identities in a globalized, interconnected world, while remaining viable places to work and live.

www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/inga_saffron

SATURN NEVER SLEEPS came about when music producer King Britt and singer/artist Rucyl collaborated in 2009 for two improvisational performances specifically dedicated to the music and sound of fellow Philadelphian Sun-Ra. Carrying on in the tradition of Sun Raʼs vision of process as art, they decided to continue their project, which led to a year of amazing opportunities, performing at Moogfest (USA), Stadtmusik Festival (Basel, Switzerland), Art Basel (Miami), Micro-cosmos (Tokyo) and residencies in Philadelphia/NYC.

The duo have been inspired by the works of classic electronic innovators like Herbie Hancock, Raymond Scott, Delia Derbyshire, the present day forwardthinking electronic scene as well as experimental composers, dub and rocksteady. These inspirations have transpired in a solid stage show combining laptop/electronics with heart melting vocals and improvised electronic instrumentation, heavy bass vibrations and sonic ambience. The live two person show consists of King Britt on samples, beats, and textures with Rucyl layering vocals and added electronics. Often both performers vary their live rigs with home-brew music applications and experimental noise makers. Their sound resonates with fans of artists like Massive Attack, Little Dragon, Sun Ra and Philip Glass. Recently opening for TV on the Radio and Sun Ra Arkestra, music collectors and young audiences alike are taking notice of their unique approach to songs.

Their debut album, YESTERDAY’S MACHINE, combines an experimental create-inthe-moment vibe with inspirational lyrics and vocal sonics that range from Sade tones to Flora Purimʼs ethereal layers. The result is well-crafted, intelligent, genre-pushing, electronic soul rooted in the duoʼs collective years of experience and musical expanse. Released August 2, 2011 on their label, SNS with worldwide physical and digital distribution by Alpha Pup.

saturnneversleeps.com

Established in 1996, Spiral Q Puppet Theater uses popular arts like parades, print, pageantry and puppets to build an urban arts democracy rooted in principles of accessibility, inclusion, self-determination, collaboration, sustainability and lifelong learning. Spiral Q works with recycled materials, teaches in schools and community organizations, leads collaborative planning of giant public art projects and supports creative community organizing. The troupe’s work is locally and nationally recognized for its capacity to inspire individuals of all ages and backgrounds, and its ability to creatively revitalize communities throughout Philadelphia.

spiralq.org

Michael Zaleski is a technologist with over 10 years experience in web services, IT management, and application development. He has worked at SEPTA for almost 5 years, and most recently as the Director of Emerging and Specialty Technology. Prior to that, Michael directed the web services for a local area college and worked in private sector application development firms.

septa.org