Phil Bernstein

Associate Dean and Professor Adjunct

Yale School of Architecture

Phil Bernstein, FAIA RIBA LEED AP©, is an architect, technologist and educator who is an Associate Dean and Professor Adjunct at the Yale School of Architecture, where he received his B.A (honors) and M.Arch and has taught since 1988. He was formerly a Vice President at Autodesk where he was responsible for setting the company’s future vision and strategy for BIM technology as well as cultivating and sustaining the firm's relationships with strategic industry leaders and associations. Prior to Autodesk, Bernstein was a principal at Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects where he managed many of the firm’s most complex commissions. He is the author of Architecture | Design | Data – Practice Competency in the Era of Computation (2018) and co-editor of Building (In) The Future: Recasting Labor in Architecture (2010 with Peggy Deamer), and speaks and writes extensively on technology, practice and project delivery. He is a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council and former Chair of the AIA National Contract Documents Committee.

Stephen Brown

Vice President, Global Market Development Leader

WELL AP & Faculty

Stephen Brown brings a broad range of experience in his 25+ year career of supporting commercial markets worldwide through interior solutions and workplace strategies. As Vice President of Global Market Development, Brown leads International WELL Building Institute’s (IWBI) global market strategy based in New York City. He prioritizes educating senior stakeholders about the WELL Portfolio program, a program that enables organizations to scale proven wellness strategies that support the health and productivity of their people while benefiting their business. He also helps organizations leverage the WELL Portfolio program to support Human Capital reporting narratives for ESG, GRESB, & UN Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining IWBI, Brown was Senior Global Account Manager for Haworth APAC region based in Hong Kong. Here he learned to appreciate multiple cultures and support global real estate strategies across regions. This was his first opportunity to promote the WELL Building Standard™ (WELL™) to the market and cement his appreciation for clean air, water and sharing solutions for healthier environments. Before moving to Hong Kong in 2012, Brown was based in New York City for over 15 years in Global Account & Sales Leadership roles for global manufactures, i.e. Haworth, Interface, Steelcase & Armstrong.

WELL Introduction (Video)

WELL Health-Safety Rating Video

WELL Strategies to FIght COVID-19

Howard Carsman

Global Construction Claims Manager

Intel Corp

Howard Carsman has served as Intel Corporation’s Global Construction Claims Manager since 2015. He is responsible for providing leadership for all aspects of construction claims management and resolution for Intel’s construction enterprise and he works with project teams on construction claim management and development of negotiation positions for Intel’s many major projects. In his role, he has developed a comprehensive program for project risk management and early dispute resolution, which has been deployed on major projects domestically and overseas. Before joining Intel in 2015, Carsman practiced law in the Pacific Northwest, focusing his practice on construction, surety, real estate and insurance. As a member of Bullivant Houser Bailey, he founded the firm’s construction practice and served as the practice leader in the firm’s Portland, Oregon office. Carsman has dedicated much of his professional life to alternative dispute resolution, in a variety of forms. Since 1996, he has served as a mediator, arbitrator, special master for construction litigation in Oregon state courts, and as a partnering facilitator for construction projects. Carsman is currently a member of the ABA ADR section’s Task Force on Conflict Prevention Techniques. He has served as a board member for the Hazelden Springbrook Foundation and as Counsel to the Board for the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the Associated General Contractors. Carsman began his legal career in 1979 in Boise, Idaho, as a Deputy Attorney General for the state of Idaho.

Ibrahim Odeh

Founding Director of the Global Leaders in Construction Management

Columbia University Professor

Ibrahim Odeh is the Founding Director of the Global Leaders in Construction Management program at Columbia University. He is a unique combination of a strategist, academic, innovator, and entrepreneur. His work seamlessly merges the worlds of industry and academia, spans the global construction market, and provides leading construction firms with unique market insights and growth strategies. Odeh worked as an advisory committee member at the World Economic Forum on the Future of Construction project and as an advisory board member at Financial Times on a similar initiative. In the fall of 2016, Odeh introduced a project focused on providing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) to educate global learners about Construction Management under the Coursera platform. In the program's first three years, the number of learners registered for his courses exceeded 80,000 from 190 countries, with an additional 400 new learners joining every week. His courses ranked third globally under the business category on Coursera. Odeh sat on several advisory boards for small and medium sized firms and has won several awards and other recognition such as Columbia University's Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching; Top 20 Under 40 by Engineering News Records; and Top 40 Under 40 by Consulting-Specifying Engineer. Odeh received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and he also holds an MBA.

Melodie Yashar

Co-Founder

Space Exploration Architecture

Melodie Yashar is a design architect, researcher and co-founder of Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch+), a group building upon a 10-year portfolio of academic space research and practice developing human-supporting concepts for space exploration. SEArch+ won top prize in the Centennial Challenge for a 3D-Printed Habitat for both of NASA’s design solicitations: in Phase 1 for “Mars Ice House” and in Phase 3 for “Mars X-House.” SEArch+ maintains ongoing collaboration with NASA Langley and NASA Marshall. Since 2017 Yashar has led SEArch+’s research developing functional prototypes and materials systems for future space habitats. She teaches undergraduate and graduate topic studios at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Yashar is also a Senior Research contractor at NASA Ames for projects specializing in human factors and space technology within the Human Systems Integration Division, as well as an Associate Researcher within the UC Davis Center for Human/Robotics/Vehicle Integration and Performance.