Passionate about designing higher education, K-12, and lifelong learning spaces and experiences that enable humans to thrive, Valerie explores how access to restorative environments impacts the mental, physical health, wellbeing, and success of learners. Valerie brings unique insights as a practicing education space designer at Hord Coplan Macht and brings expertise in design thinking, lean methods, ethnography, and creative approaches to user engagement.
Valerie is co-author of AIA Upjohn-funded primary research, The Impact of Biophilic Learning Spaces on Student Success. A champion of radical collaboration, her research partners from various initiatives come from diverse fields, including neuroscience, environmental psychology, behavioral science, and developmental psychology. As author of Creating Common Ground: Architecture for Tactical Learning and Creative Convergence, Valerie’s research explores infrastructures for learning, considering spatial strategies which stimulate a range of human experiences that cultivate creativity. Valerie’s goal is to help translate evidence-based design strategies and findings into architectural practice, thereby promoting research and wellbeing literacy in school systems.
As a University Innovation Fellow (Stanford d.School), and Design Thinking Facilitator (University of Maryland AIE), Valerie has collaborated with students, faculty, researchers, administrators, and industry professionals to facilitate positive local impact in higher education learning environments across the globe.
Sangyoon Park is an intermediate healthcare architect at E4H (Environments for Health Architecture) living in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a proud second-generation Korean American who grew up in Northern Virginia. She completed her undergraduate B.S. in architecture at the University of Virginia with a minor in global sustainability, and shortly after finished her Master of Architecture in 2018 at the WAAC (Washington Alexandria Architecture Center) satellite of Virginia Tech.
At the office, outside of her work on medical clinics, imaging centers, and freestanding emergency departments, Sangyoon is currently co-leading a WELL AP and LEED Green Associate study group among her peers, and also helping to orchestrate presentations for an in-office group of emerging professionals. At home, she continues her great love for creativity and design through mediums of food, event-planning, and painting. She is very grateful to be a recipient of the 2022 Sho-Ping Chin WLS Grant and to bring home and share everything learned at this year’s AIA Women’s Leadership Summit.
Joy Noel Cunningham is a Project Architect who provides design and technical production leadership and support at MG2 for the Client Programs market. Joy has achieved success with well-established companies such as Costco and Target, to name a few.
Joy holds a Bachelor’s of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her undergraduate thesis project helped her realize her passion for designing buildings that leave lasting impressions on visitors and communities. She desires to transform and enhance surroundings and unify people of different ethnic backgrounds and demographics through her building design environments. Her thorough comprehension of green building principles and practice has earned her the LEED Green Associate credential. To reach her highest potential in her career, Joy is pursuing architectural licensure by completing NCARB experience hours and licensure exams.
Representation is essential to attract Black talent to the industry. Joy values the building of diverse collaborative environments, bringing powerful changes such as improving processes and business practices. She is an active member of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee and the Black Lives Matter Coalition at MG2. She recently became a member of the DC Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects. Joy has landed coverage in web and social media outlets that feature the contributions of diverse professionals in the architecture and design industry, including America’s Hidden Gem and Beyond the Built Environment.
Christian Coles has a passion for designing for minority communities particularly the African American community and examining the human experience of architecture and urban design through incorporating psychological principles into the design process. He studied within the schools of architecture and psychology concurrently at Georgia Tech receiving his Bachelor of Science in Architecture with a certificate in Psychology in May 2016. Upon graduating, he continued his education at University of Michigan studying the connections between architectural design/urban design and human psychology. Christian’s thesis addressed a history of racially restrictive urban planning practices within Newport News, Virginia and how these have created challenges for the African American community present there today and movements forward to reconcile.
He has previously taught two studios at Kennesaw State University concerning Cultural Efficacy Through Design and Regenerative Urban Design for the neighborhood of Sweet Auburn in Atlanta. In addition to currently working at Chasm Architecture in Atlanta, GA, a diverse firm working on projects that bridge from architecture to community planning and urban design, he also teaches a course on African American Design and Aesthetics through CPDI Africa and undergraduate design studio courses at Georgia Institute of Technology.