Deborah Gans is the Founder and Principal Architect of Gans and Company, an architecture and design firm based in Brooklyn, and a Professor of Architecture at the Pratt Institute. Educated in architecture at Princeton during a period of theoretical autonomy, Gans pivoted early on to pursue new forms of social engagement in design. Her work spans architecture, industrial design, and community-based urban planning, often addressing extreme sites and socially urgent programs. Notable projects include a HUD-funded, community-based plan for post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans East, developed with the Pratt Center. This initiative led to a multi-year engagement in Sheepshead Bay following Superstorm Sandy, where Gans & Co facilitated the resilient reconstruction of housing and community infrastructure at a neighborhood scale. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the recipient of numerous awards recognizing her contributions to architecture, education, and public advocacy.

Samuel Stein is a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society (CSS) of New York. Prior to joining CSS, he worked for such housing and labor organizations as Tenants & Neighbors and the Service Employees International Union local 32BJ. He researches and writes about the politics of urban planning in New York City, with an emphasis on housing, real estate, labor and gentrification. His work has been published in The Guardian, The Village Voice, Jacobin and many other newspapers, magazines, websites, edited volumes and scholarly journals, and has been reviewed in The New Yorker, Los Angeles Review of Books, Architectural Review, and more. He is the author of the book Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State (Verso, 2019). Stein holds a Ph.D. in geography from the CUNY Graduate Center and a Master’s in Urban Planning from Hunter College.

Born in Mexico City, Miguel Robles-Durán is an urbanist, theorist, and educator committed to social and spatial justice. He is an Associate Professor of Urbanism at Parsons School of Design, where he directs the graduate urban programs. Miguel is a founding member of The Shape of Cities to Come Institute, Urban Front, and Cohabitation Strategies, and served as co-director of Ecuador’s National Center for the Right to the Territory (CENEDET). Over the last two decades, he has worked on urban and territorial projects with progressive governments, cultural institutions, and public agencies across South America, North America, and Europe. Miguel’s practice and scholarship focus on the structural forces of neoliberal urbanization and the advancement of collective urban rights. He has collaborated closely with David Harvey in the development of international initiatives supporting the Right to the City, and he co-hosts Cities After, a media platform examining global urban transformations. His work has been featured in major museums and biennials worldwide, and he is co-author and co-editor of Urban Asymmetries, a critical study of contemporary urban restructuring.

Gabriela is a Mexican-born urban planner, researcher, and educator committed to social and spatial justice. She is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Community Development and a Faculty Fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School. Gabriela is a founding and active member of The Shape of Cities to Come Institute, Urban Front, and Cohabitation Strategies. Over the last twenty years, she has worked in urban, housing, and community-based projects commissioned by art and cultural institutions, as well as municipalities and public agencies in diverse cities in Western Europe, North America, and South America. Gabriela currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust. She is the author and co-editor of a number of publications, including Cooperative Cities (Journal of Design Strategies), Social Property and the Need of a New Urban Practice (Taylor & Francis), and Cities For or Against Citizens? Socio-spatial Restructuring and the Paradox of Citizen Participation in Low-income Neighborhoods (A+BE Series).

An Assistant Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, Karen Kubey is an ubranist specializing in housing design and social justice. The editor of Housing as Intervention: Architecture towards Social Equity (Architectural Design, 2018), she served as the first executive director of the Institute for Public Architecture and convenes the American Institute of Architects Right-to-Housing Working Group. She is also the founder and director of the Housing Justice Lab at the Daniels Faculty.