Lisa DePiano is a certified permaculture designer/teacher and faculty member for the Yestermorrow Design/Build School and the University of Massachusetts. For the last 13 years she has taught permaculture to hundreds of students in dozens of courses all over the United States. She co-founded the Montview Neighborhood Farm, one of the first public, human powered urban-farm and edible forest gardens in the country and worked to establish the bicycle powered compost program while riding with the worker-owned collective Pedal People. She received her masters degree in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts and loves working with communities to create the world they want to live in. She runs the Mobile Design Lab which specializes in participatory permaculture consultation, design & installation and is the lead instructor of Permaculture FEAST.
Kate Cholakis: A graduate of the Conway School of Landscape Design (M.A. Sustainable Landscape Design and Planning ’11) and Smith College (B.A. Architecture and Urbanism, Landscape Studies ’10), Kate works full time in green infrastructure planning at Nitsch Engineering, Inc. She works three days a week in Boston and two days a week in Northampton for Nitsch at the Design Collective office. Her professional interests and experience include sustainable design for university campuses, residential landscape design, graphic design, copy-editing, teaching at the undergraduate level, grant-funded work, and learning as much as she can about plants. She enjoys sharing an office space with such a talented group of professionals, and collaborating on volunteer projects.
Nitsch Engineering Website
Portfolio
Website
Julie Meyer: As a residential landscape designer in the Pioneer Valley since 2000, Julie’s passion is for projects that deepen the experience of home and expand a feeling of connection to the world. Her individualized design collaborations are a result of discovering the patterns of ecology distinct to a place and the habits of inhabiting that landscape that are unique to the people who live there. Julie’s experience with regional sustainable agriculture activism and bioengineering projects helps to inform her board work with the Hampshire Conservation District to address local natural resource concerns. Julie produced a method for participation in the planning and design of public open space to earn an MLA from University of Massachusetts in 2011. She joins forces in this office to further explore and develop interactive public design.
Jamie Pottern: A farmer, landscape designer, and whole systems thinker, Jamie is a graduate of the Conway School of Landscape Design (‘12) and Brandeis University (‘09). Her most recent projects include a landscape master plan for a farm in Hatfield, MA, a food system assessment for the town of Concord, MA, and a pathway and trails analysis for a yoga center in the Berkshires. She is committed to fostering greater food security, ecological sustainability, and resilience in the Pioneer Valley.
Ally Sterling: An organic farmer, edible landscape designer, and entrepreneur. She is a graduate of Hampshire College (‘10) and holds a certification in permaculture design from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (‘09). Her current projects include drafting a tropical food forest garden design in downtown Holyoke, for Nuestras Raices; residential and edible landscape projects ranging from Vermont and Connecticut, to Boston and Cape Cod. Ally has worked with schools to implement gardens and farming programs in the Pioneer Valley and Southern Vermont. She is an advocate of food accessibility, seed sovereignty, and healthy lives for everybody.
Nina Antonetti: Nina is an international scholar of metropolitan community development, including placemaking, cultural landscapes, environmental justice, food security, and historic preservation. She is Director of Advancement and Strategic Initiatives and a professor at Conway School, Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning + Design in Conway, Massachusetts. Among her many professional activities, she is a Fellow at the Center for Creative Solutions at Marlboro College Graduate Center and sits on the Placemaking Leadership Council of the Project for Public Spaces.
Lynn Barclay: Lynn has over two decades of leadership experience working to promote justice and human rights, children’s rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, income redistribution, and environmental justice. She has solid experience in community outreach, public policy advocacy, strategic planning, communications, nonprofit management, and fundraising.
Seth Gregory: Seth Gregory Design – Website
Adin Maynard: Power House Energy Consulting – Website
Alex Martines: Just Peachy – Website
Darren Port
Alexander Kahn