“I like that sustainable design necessitates rethinking systems, breaking rules, and generating knowledge. I love that it requires inviting new voices to the design process where you can test, refine, and elevate new concepts – doing so builds capacity in others and myself.”
Rebecca is as a sustainable development professional and city builder. She’s a subject matter expert in performance and assessment, and leads a team of specialists responsible for advancing our commitment to sustainability. Rebecca believes strongly that the design process must prioritize the health of the environment as the first principle of protecting human health.
Rebecca is skilled at communicating the value of sustainable design, and charting paths for projects to meaningfully respond to global imperatives and commitments to climate action. Her approach seeks co-benefits and embraces local, contextual conditions. A strategist, collaborator, and steward of process, she is known for her rigour and willingness to question business as usual. Rebecca has led many successful projects both large and small, pursuing aggressive sustainable design goals.
In service of accelerating the practice of sustainability, Rebecca is also an advocate for research-in-practice. She establishes partnerships between academics and designers to inform practical application with evidence, and offers project-based research opportunities to the academic community. In the past, she has led designed experiments, research fellowships, grant funded research projects, and supervised students within large research cluster projects. She is currently leading hcma’s collaboration with Dr. Lindsay McCunn, Environmental Psychologist, to evaluate design conditions in schools, and their impact on occupant experience.