Keynote Speakers

Alicia Ponce is the Founder and Principal of APMonarch, a Chicago-based, female and Latina-owned architecture firm. Under Alicia’s direction, the firm provides architectural services, community engagement and sustainability consulting for projects throughout the Midwest and Mexico. Her expertise and passion to design healthy buildings and equitable communities support many clients in creating architecture that is ambitious, thoughtful and healthy.

Dr. Holm is a professor of building physics who currently serves as the Institute Director of the Forschungsinstitut für Wärmeschutz e. V. Munich (FIW Munich). He began his professional career 25 years ago, during which he has served as group leader in the department of hygrothermics responsible for the development of WUFI and was head of the “Indoor Environment” department within Fraunhofer-IBP.

John Woelfling is committed to creating sustainable and resource-efficient designs, using an integrated and holistic approach that reduces impacts on the environment and positively effects the health and comfort of building occupants. He leverages his broad experiences working across project typologies, from education and recreation to healthcare and infrastructure, to inform his leadership of Dattner’s mixed-use residential projects.

Christoph Stump, AIA, Vice President Design and Construction, joined Trinity in 2014 and currently manages due diligence, permitting, and construction activities in Trinity’s New York office. Additionally, he provides technical assistance for prospecting. Mr. Stump has more than 15 years of experience in the design and construction of mixed-use and residential developments.

Alan Gibson is Manager of GO Logic LLC of Belfast, Maine -- a 35- person design/build firm, general contractor, and panel manufacturer. He holds a BA from Brown University and is a Certified Passive House Builder and Designer.

Graham Irwin, AIA, CPHC®, is the principal of Essential Habitat Architecture, a Northern California design firm focused on healthy, high performance, sustainable buildings built to Passive Building standards. He has a degree in physics, with additional studies in engineering and architecture, and an extensive background in software development.

Allison Bailes has a broad range of experience and education, but at heart, he is a teacher. He taught physics at the high school and college level. After building a high-performance home in 2001, he launched himself into a new career in the world of building science. For most of this new career, Dr. Bailes has run Energy Vanguard, which he founded in 2008.

Laura Nettleton is an architect who has studied low energy solutions since the early 1980’s, when she worked on Passive Solar projects. Her career has been focused on retrofits as she understood early on embodied energy in most existing buildings, is a large number! She completed one of the first LEED projects in Pittsburgh but longed for better energy performance. After she was introduced to Passive House, she served as a champion in the Pittsburgh region and her office, Thoughtful Balance designed one of the first large scale Passive House retrofits in North America.

Katrin Klingenberg is a visionary who has driven adoption of the Phius Standard throughout the past 20 years. Passive building methodology originated in the United States and Canada in the 1970s and was enhanced in Germany in the 1990s. Klingenberg reinvigorated it in the United States in 2003 when she built the first passive house in Champaign-Urbana. Her home sparked considerable interest and she went on to found the non-profit organization Phius (Passive House Institute US), dedicated to making passive building a mainstream best practice.

Gabriela Martin is Program Director at the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICECF), where she oversees energy grants, including the Foundation’s net zero programs. She has more than 25 years of experience working in policy, research, analysis, energy modeling, program and product development in the fields of renewable energy, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions across the electric utility, public and non-profit sectors.

Lois’ 32-year career as a practicing architect has focused on sustainability as intrinsic to design aided by the application of green technologies and sustainable planning. As Chief Sustainability Officer for Wight, recently, Lois has led the effort to design five buildings to meet the criteria for Net Zero Energy.