Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator:

Aaron Shkuda
Princeton Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities, Lecturer in Architecture

Panelists:     

Ralph Bennett ’61 *66
Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Founding Partner, Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects

Lisa Soghor ’86
Assistant City Manager, City of Culver City

Tom Wright ’91
President and CEO, Regional Plan Association

Nicole White Forrest ’01
Principal, White Forrest LLC

Dana McKinney White ’11
Assistant Professor of Urban Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design; Co-Founder, enFOLD Collective; Founder, Studio KINN

MODERATOR

Aaron Shkuda
Aaron Shkuda runs the Princeton Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities, a program in the Princeton University School of Architecture that fosters collaboration between scholars and students studying urban life and the built environment. Shkuda received his Ph.D. in United States urban history from the University of Chicago and is the author of “The Lofts of Soho: Gentrification, Art, and Industry in New York, 1950–1980” (Chicago, 2016) and the upcoming “Financial Capitals,” a book about the spatial impact of securities and commodities trading on central business districts in New York, Chicago and New Jersey. He teaches courses in the Urban Studies minor at Princeton, including Affordable Housing in the U.S. and Mapping Gentrification. Shkuda has published articles on subjects ranging from arts-focused retail districts to the architecture and planning behind Battery Park City. He previously held positions at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford Universities.

PANELISTS

Ralph Bennett ’61 *66
Ralph Bennett graduated with an A.B. in architecture from Princeton in 1961. After two years in the Army, he completed his M.F.A. in architecture at Princeton. He then worked in Boston for Kallmann and McKinnell and Jose Luis Sert before co-founding Massdesign Architects and Planners. He also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for five years. A project in Baltimore brought him to Maryland in 1977; he established Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects with two former students for residential work at all scales. He started teaching studio design, theory and drawing at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, attaining the rank of professor, and, now, professor emeritus. Bennett has taught two courses on sustainability since his retirement in 2008. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a charter signer of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Lisa Soghor ’86
Lisa Soghor has over 30 years of leadership experience in local government. As assistant city manager in Culver City, she blends ambitious policy goals with fiscal sustainability. She helped Culver City acquire and rehabilitate two motels for supportive housing for homeless individuals. In her prior role as assistant city manager in Malibu, she was instrumental in organizing the rebuilding efforts after the 2018 Woolsey Fire. For the League of California Cities, Soghor currently serves as president of the Fiscal Officers Group and sits on the Housing, Community and Economic Development Policy Committee. An art history major at Princeton, she completed her Master of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. As the deputy executive officer of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority from 1995 to 2016, she was dedicated to the acquisition, development and operation of parkland throughout Los Angeles County, including innovative natural projects in underserved urban areas.

Tom Wright ’91
As president and CEO of Regional Plan Association (RPA), Tom Wrights leads a 100-year-old civic organization that develops and advocates long-range plans for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region. RPA priorities include charging drivers to enter the Manhattan Central Business District; cutting carbon emissions and scaling up renewable energy sources; creating healthy, affordable housing; modernizing the New York City subways; and other infrastructure investments, including a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River connected to a renovated and expanded Penn Station. A frequent public speaker and commentator on regional governance, economic growth and development, and transit investments, Wright is the chair of the New Jersey State Planning Commission and has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia and Princeton.

Nicole White Forrest ’01
Nicole White Forrest is a real estate developer, investor and educator whose career has spanned affordable, middle-market and luxury housing across the private, public and nonprofit sectors, domestically and internationally. She has been responsible for the creation of thousands of homes and was an early pioneer in combining affordability and sustainability. She has structured public-private partnerships with transit authorities and government agencies and originated an international housing finance company. Forrest served as executive director of the San Diego Housing Fund, a double-bottom-line private equity vehicle launched by a regional community foundation to address the local housing crisis, and has contributed to task forces on affordability and homelessness. At the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business, she teaches real estate development and finance, housing innovation and emerging technologies. A politics major at Princeton, she holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dana McKinney White ’11
Dana McKinney White is a licensed architect and urban designer and is an outspoken advocate for social justice and equity through design. She contextualizes people and their broader communities throughout her work. Her academic and professional work integrates wellness, progressive public policy and inclusive economics into innovative design solutions. She is the co-founder of enFOLD Collective, an interdisciplinary architecture, planning and design practice that positions community voices at the center of its projects, and is the founder of Studio KINN, a consulting practice advising on design and planning projects through a heightened commitment to vulnerable communities. An architecture major at Princeton, McKinney White completed her Master of Architecture and Master in Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), where she now is assistant professor of urban design. As a student at the GSD, she co-established the inaugural Black in Design Conference and the Design Nexus.