Who We Are

Office: Architecture Hall 130K
Phone: (206) 685-7282
ksimonen@uw.edu

Kathrina Simonen (Kate), AIA, SE is the executive director of the Carbon Leadership Forum and Professor and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington. Connecting significant professional experience in high performance building design and technical expertise in environmental life cycle assessment she works to spur collective action to bring net embodied carbon to zero through cutting-edge research, cross-sector collaboration, and the incubation of new approaches.

Kate directs the research of the Carbon Leadership Forum and convenes collaborative initiatives such as the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (the EC3 tool) and the Structural Engineers 2050 Challenge.

djc07@uw.edu

Delilah is currently a junior at the University of Washington pursuing a degree in Architecture. Her interest in the Carbon Leadership Forum stems from her motivation to create better living spaces for those experiencing housing insecurity, while tackling social and environmental issues in the built environment.

mkalsman@uw.edu

Megan Kalsman is a Policy Researcher with the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. She specializes in advancing the procurement of low-carbon materials and informs the development and implementation of cross-sectoral climate policies targeting embodied carbon.

Before joining the CLF, Megan completed her Master of Science degree at Lund University in Sweden in Environmental Management and Policy with the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics. She published her thesis project in 2021, on the intersection of gender equality with different environmental issues like climate change, biodiversity, and chemicals on an international policy scale.

Prior to studying in Sweden, Megan coordinated environmental policies and programs for local government agencies in California with a focus on toxic chemical reduction and pollution prevention. She helped in developing the first in the nation ban on toxic flame retardant chemicals in San Francisco. This served as a model policy for the State of California and other states in the U.S. passing similar policies. Her undergraduate degree was in Environmental Studies at San Francisco State University with a minor in Urban Planning and the Built Environment.

Megan’s work at the CLF combines her environmental research experience and policy design background. She strives to frame her work with an intersectional lens each day – protecting the health of people and the environment in an equitable way. At the CLF, Megan enjoys interacting with a variety of stakeholders around embodied carbon policies and ultimately working together towards a more sustainable and just future.

prajin@uw.edu

Prajin is a student at the University of Washington currently seeking a degree in Architecture, with a focus on sustainability. Past research and environmental restoration projects encourage an ongoing commitment to climate justice through continued academic experiences and work with the CLF. Prajin’s beliefs are centered around taking racial and economic disparities into account when working towards carbon reduction and broader climate action.

hickling@uw.edu

Anthony Hickling is the Managing Director of the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington where he leads business operations and organizational strategy. Anthony is responsible for ensuring that CLF’s efforts are prioritized, structured and resourced to enable embodied carbon reductions at scale. He has an MBA in Sustainable Solutions from Presidio Graduate School and has spent his career working to address the climate crisis and environmental inequity. He is personally passionate about good architecture and hopes to help realize a future where buildings transform from an environmental threat to a true solution to climate change.

scc33@uw.edu

Stephanie’s work investigates the interaction between the natural and constructed environment, including embodied carbon, life cycle assessment (LCA), urban ecology, landscape performance and supply chains and toxicity of building materials. Combining a background in environmental science and architectural design, she builds bridges between research and practice, bringing data-driven analysis and topical research to complex design problems. This experience is applied towards improving the EC3 tool as well as other carbon data initiatives at the Carbon Leadership Forum. She most recently was a Principal at KieranTimberlake Architects where she was an environmental researcher in the firm’s interdisciplinary research group. She is also a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and a Co-Editor-In-Chief of Scenario Journal. 

ckondrat@uw.edu

Clare is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of Washington, with the intention of exploring the intersectionality between environment, society, and the built environment. Her work with the CLF complements her goals of bringing humanity to address social justice issues and working to help both local and global communities.

evanscw@uw.edu

Chad Evans helps to manage budgets, keep projects on track, support HR needs, and optimize systems and processes so that we can all be doing our best work in the most efficient way possible. Chad has a varied professional background that includes sustainable energy financial management and consulting, project, program, and operations management, governance and compliance, and small business management. He is currently in Philadelphia after five months abroad, but Seattle has been home for most of his life. 

ashtiani@uw.edu

Milad Ashtiani is a civil engineer and PhD candidate at the University of Washington, responsible for the execution of research and analysis, development of guidance documents and educational resources, and outreach across the design community to improve the quality, accuracy, and effectiveness of building performance tools, methods and data that address embodied carbon. As a building and materials researcher, he works collaboratively with CLF’s internal research team as well as with architecture and engineering firms and research consortiums across North America with a focus on building performance, computation, embodied carbon assessments, and life cycle assessment (LCA).

ahimes1@uw.edu

Andrew Himes is director of collective impact at the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington, leading industry-wide initiatives to reduce embodied carbon emissions from built environments. In the late 80s, Himes was the founding editor of MacTech, still the leading Apple technology journal, then co-founded the Microsoft Developer Network, led the first web development project at Microsoft, and led company-wide efforts throughout the 1990s to meet new Internet-based opportunities. In the 2000s, Himes was founding director for the Charter for Compassion International, and then was a partner in Carbon Innovations LLC, a social impact consultancy focused on business-based solutions to climate change. In 2018, he was coordinator of Carbon Smart Building Day, a conference affiliated with the Global Climate Action Summit focused on transforming the global building industry to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. He was executive producer for the acclaimed documentary Voices in Wartime, and authored the best-selling history, The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family.

meghancl@uw.edu

Meghan Lewis is a Senior Researcher at the Carbon Leadership Forum, where she leads research on procurement of low carbon materials and how public and private embodied carbon policy can support the rapid decarbonization of building materials and construction. Previous to joining the CLF, Meghan was the Head of Global Energy & Sustainability at WeWork, where she also launched the Supply Chain Sustainability program in 2018. Meghan gained her architecture license while practicing at Mithun, where she worked on a range of project types and spearheaded internal efforts to integrate LCA and low carbon material selection into the design process.

bbenke@uw.edu

Brad Benke, AIA, is a Research Engineer at the Carbon Leadership Forum focused on developing data-driven resources to help practitioners and policymakers adopt and scale decarbonization strategies in the built environment. With a background in deep-green architecture and consulting, Brad works to synthesize and improve life cycle assessment practices and tools within the AEC industry and deliver practical solutions for low-carbon building design and construction. His recent work includes leading the CLF WBLCA Benchmark Study and developing the background data and methodologies for the CLF Embodied Carbon Policy Reduction Calculator. Brad is a former co-chair of AIA Seattle’s Committee on the Environment, and a former Senior Architect at McLennan Design, where he led diverse teams and stakeholders toward achieving decarbonization goals for buildings and organizations across the country.

myth29@uw.edu

Monica Huang is a research engineer for the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. Her background is in civil and structural engineering and currently works on research on environmental life cycle assessment (LCA). Research expertise includes the environmental impacts of earthquake damage, LCAs of office tenant improvements, and LCAs of mass timber buildings. She was the lead author on the CLF’s LCA Practice Guide and coordinated the CLF’s Wood Carbon Seminars.

Past research experience includes diverse topics such as astronomy, electronic waste, and sea level rise.  As a graduate student, she developed the Port of Seattle’s first study on the impacts of sea level rise on seaport structures.

bwaldman@uw.edu

Brook is a research engineer at the Carbon Leadership Forum, where he investigates the life cycle of building materials — their manufacture, use, and end-of-life  — and the environmental impacts that accompany those processes.  He also studies and aims to improve the methodologies and data behind the measurement and communication of those environmental impacts. At the CLF, he has been particularly involved in supporting the EC3 tool and developing the CLF Material Baselines.

Previously, Brook studied architecture at the University of Oregon, where he focused on lifecycle assessment (LCA) research of high-performance buildings and construction materials, and worked in architectural practice in Seattle. He was also an educator: he taught high school math (how can we follow the numbers?) and environmental studies (what is our human relationship to the Earth’s material and energy flows?) and led youth wilderness trips.

Besides working at the CLF, Brook volunteers as a math tutor for his local alternative high school and as a sorter at his community’s foam and plastics recycling events. He has a life-long fascination with making new useful stuff from old landfill-bound stuff (like furniture-making with salvaged wood and welding for a biodiesel cooperative). And he maintains a small building-LCA-focused consulting company.

Nilesh is the Director of Sustainability at cove.tool. His primary focus is on product development, supporting research efforts and guiding the AEC industry in defining their organizational strategy for adopting sustainability as a key parameter to help them move towards data driven empirical design decision making. Nilesh strives to democratize Building Sciences for the masses, having a true impact in our fight against climate change. He also has a Master of Science Degree in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon and has served as a Sustainability Specialist on several large commercial projects.

dkestner@walterpmoore.com

As Director of Sustainable Design at Walter P. Moore, Dirk Kestner provides overall guidance and resourcing to the entire firm, ensuring that all designs incorporate industry-leading expertise in sustainable strategies. His project work, teaching, and coaching throughout the firm and broad-reaching influence in the industry help maintain Walter P Moore’s status as a national leader in sustainable approaches and outcomes.

Trained and experienced as a structural engineer, Dirk applies his immense passion for environmental accountability in design to elevate the knowledge and expertise of all those around him, creating better results for clients and projects. Dirk guides each team through a client inquiry process that produces bespoke sustainability goals for each project and then leads the team to achieve those goals.

He was the founding chair of the Sustainability Committee of the ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) and is widely acknowledged as a national thought leader in the advancement of sustainable structural solutions. Dirk publishes and lectures frequently on topics that range from durability and deconstructability to salvaged structural steel and life cycle analysis. As a member of the LEED Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group of the US Green Building Council, he helps guide the important technical criteria of the LEED rating system.

Dirk is a professional engineer in Texas and Georgia and is a LEED Accredited Professional/Building Design + Construction. He holds a Master of Science in Structural Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and graduated Cum Laude from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.

bb@sustainable-performance.org

Barbra BatShalom is the founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Sustainable Performance Institute, CEO of BuildingEase and past founder and President of the USGBC Affiliate in Massachusetts which she ran for 9 years. She’s an industry leader whose vision drives market transformation programs from public policy to professional practice. Her work focuses on the intersection of systems, processes and culture. With a diverse background of fine arts, social psychology and 25 years in architecture and sustainability consulting, she brings a variety of skills to her work and a unique perspective engaging the human dynamics of decision-making and creative collaboration to technical work. She’s an educator, management consultant and change agent working with a wide range of governmental, institutional and private sector organizations to help them institutionalize sustainability and achieve measurable improvements in performance and profitability. Barbra also mentors startups for Clean Tech Open and has taught grad course in Sust. RE Development at Brandeis’ International Business school,  she guest lectures at various business schools including MIT, BU and Babson, teaches extensively within corporations and currently teaches Leadership for Sustainability and Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Boston Architectural College. She provides management consulting to a variety of corporate clients within and outside of the building industry, with a focus on organizational excellence and change management. She has served on numerous boards (including Chair of local USGBC MA Chapter, called BE+), and mindfulMaterials. She has served on governmental task forces to help develop public and corporate policies for sustainability and volunteers in various industry initiatives such as past tenure on the AIA’s 2030 Commitment working group.

reshmasingh@lbl.gov  

Reshma Singh serves as Program Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s tech-to-market IMPEL program (IMPEL.lbl.gov), an early-stage incubator and accelerator for building-energy technologies. She manages the California Energy Commission’s R2M2 microgrid program, and previously the Presidential U.S.-India bilateral Center for Building Energy Research and Development (www.CBERD.org) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

She brings over 10 years of experience advancing urban sustainability, cleantech buildings innovation, and working with complex international ecosystems in United States, India, and Singapore. Reshma’s work lies at the intersection of design and technology of smart buildings and cities, with a focus on energy, data analytics, UX, and IoT sensors and controls.

Reshma holds two cleantech patents. She is author of the “Building Innovation Guide for High-Performance Energy Efficient Buildings in India” (www.BuildingInnovationGuide.com), and contributor to the book “Mutations: Harvard Project on the City”. She serves on the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA) Smart Buildings and Power and Energy group, on the Advisory Council for the U.S. Department’s of State’s international TechWomen program, and is recipient of the American Association of University Women award and Harvard’s Community Service fellowship.

kaushal@ibi.baug.ethz.ch 

Deepshi is a practicing architect, urban designer and a sustainability consultant. With over a decade of experience in India, Singapore and south-east Asia she has worked on several noteworthy projects both in the public and private sector. Her extensive experience research-led design projects range from the micro-scale of zero carbon homes, proof-of-concept commercial research projects and further to the macro-scale of sustainable communities. Many of these projects have
been recognised and awarded for their integrated sustainable design thinking and evidence based approach. Her recent achievements include the Kallang River rejuvenation masterplan in Singapore and Godisfabriken, a public housing in the cultural precinct of Läkerol Candy Factory in Gävle, Sweden.

marta.schantz@uli.org

Marta Schantz currently leads the Urban Land Institute’s Greenprint Center, a worldwide alliance of leading real estate owners, investors, and strategic partners committed to improving the environmental performance of the global real estate industry. Through measurement, benchmarking, knowledge sharing, and implementation of best practices, Greenprint and its members strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030.

Previously a Director at Waypoint Energy – a boutique consultancy on energy efficiency, utilities, and real estate – responsible for running sustainability consulting contracts, leading business development activities and proposal writing, and managing (and mentoring) teams of analysts to ensure quality program delivery. Prior to Waypoint, a Senior Consultant a Booz Allen Hamilton, performing qualitative and quantitative energy and policy analyses as a part of the federal energy, transportation, and environment (ETE) consulting team. Also previously a Program Analyst with the US Department of Energy’s Office of Cost Analysis.

scott.henson@carboninnovations.org

Scott Henson is a people, change management, and product leader with the urgent need to address climate change. I have held many product leadership roles from incubation and product design, to running and optimizing businesses at scale. He has also led many strategic partnership teams focused on building healthy, thriving, and innovative application ecosystems. This work was on large-scale, commercially successful platforms including Windows, Xbox, and Fire TV.

Recently, after a great deal of research and learning, Scott re-oriented his life and professional focus to address the social, environmental, and business challenges posed by the climate crisis. What do consumer products and the climate crisis have in common? Both are powered by people – our attitudes, behaviors, motivations, and values. Through this insight, he believes we can tap into the unlimited potential of humans to address these huge challenges with a sense of possibility, creating a better world for every person and every life on our planet.

He is currently focused on promoting and accelerating scientifically proven solutions to reversing the climate crisis with the goal of achieving a net negative “Drawdown” of greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and equitably as possible. Specialties include business opportunity and financial analysis, change-management, international leadership, people, partner, and relationship management, platform and product vision and development, product strategy, incubation, hardware and software design, and user experience.

sking@kilroyrealty.com

Sarah King has 20+ years of experience advancing sustainability progress in both corporate and NGO settings. I am currently the SVP, Sustainability at Kilroy Realty, working to accelerate progress toward ambitious sustainability goals for new and existing buildings. Prior to joining Kilroy she was the Sustainability Director for Skanska USA Commercial Development where she worked with project teams in all US markets to integrate sustainable building technology & innovation into all stages of the commercial development process. For 10 years she was a key member of the DuPont sustainability team, working with each of the businesses and functions to embed sustainability in the corporate strategy to enhance business value and positive societal impact.