Knowlton School Advisory Board
Knowlton School Advisory Board
Roxyanne Burrus
Roxyanne Burrus teaches City and Regional Planning principles and practices at Knowlton. Roxyanne also owns a consulting business, Cartier Burrus LLC, and a newly formed travel business. A graduate of UCLA with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, Roxyanne earned a Master’s Degree in City and Regional Planning from the Knowlton School. She held executive-level positions as a Neighborhood Department Administrator and Regional Planning Director for Seneca County, Ohio. Throughout her 30-year career with city and county government, Roxyanne managed long-range community and neighborhood planning, review of zoning and variance applications and subdivision regulations, administered Historic Preservation, Code Enforcement, Neighborhood Planning, Community Revitalization, Affordable Housing and Non-profit grant administration. She is on the Franklin County Planning Commission, and the Knowlton School Alumni Society Board.
Megan Cavanaugh
Megan Cavanaugh has been at the Wexner Center for the Arts since 2003 and is currently the Chief Operating Officer. She has held several previous positions at the Wex, including Director of Exhibitions Management, Director of Patron Services, and Head Registrar, and has been in her current role since 2019. Megan oversees institutional initiatives across the Wex, ranging from interdisciplinary programming to strategic planning, and works collaboratively with partners across campus and the community and beyond. She still works closely with the gallery-based programs, and their budgets, contracts, and logistics, and is involved in these areas throughout the center. She has occasionally acted as a curator on architecture- and design-related exhibitions, including Sarah Oppenheimer: S-337473, Architecture Interruptus, and All of Everything: Todd Oldham Fashion, and has been honored to work closely with such artists as LaToya Ruby Frazier, Tomashi Jackson, and Taryn Simon.
Kerry Gerich
Kerry Gerich is a Landscape Designer at EDGE, working on a wide variety of projects, including estate residential, mixed-use development, and sports and recreation master plans. Her diverse experiences in horticulture and environmental design allow her to provide a nuanced perspective to the collaborative process. She is a former President of the Knowlton Alumni Society and holds a BS in landscape architecture from the Knowlton School.
Jennifer Guthrie
Jennifer Guthrie is a founding partner of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Jennifer’s design leadership merges a guiding, experiential vision with innovative and precise detailing. Her work ranges broadly, encompassing urban districts of green streets and mixed-use housing, public squares, rooftop gardens, urban farms, and cultural institutions. Corresponding examples of these diverse project types include the University of Washington’s West Campus Streetscape and UW Farm, Chicago’s Lurie Garden at Millennium Park, and the Seattle Civic Center Campus. GGN is the recipient of the 2017 ASLA National Landscape Architecture Firm Award. Additionally, Jennifer and her partners are the recipients of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Architecture in 2011. She is President of the Landscape Architectural Foundation Board and serves on the CEO Roundtable. Jennifer was the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor at Knowlton in 2014–15. She holds a bachelor of landscape architecture from the University of Washington.
Liz Lagedrost
Liz Lagedrost earned a bachelor’s degree from Miami University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the Knowlton School. After graduate school, Liz was with SWA in Los Angeles for two years, before moving to Walt Disney Imagineering, where she worked as a designer and senior designer for nine years. She is now a senior designer in Martha Schwartz Partners’ LA office. She is an award-winning designer with projects across the globe, from art installations to urban infrastructure, to themed entertainment. With a passion for narrative and history, Liz approaches design through the lens of storytelling. Her interest in the intrinsic nature of human beings and our propensity for art, curiosity, and play, has influenced her desire to create unique places within the public realm. With an expertise in 3D modeling visualization and a strong background in graphic communication, Liz has led and collaborated with experts in the art, architecture, engineering, and entertainment industries to deliver on a number of world-class experiential projects.
Andy Lantz
Andy Lantz is Partner and Creative Director at RIOS in Los Angeles, which he joined in 2011. His design perspective, style, and aesthetic have played important roles in numerous projects the firm has completed. While in graduate school, Andy helped design the Beverly School for the Deaf in Massachusetts, which required him to rethink learning environments that were visually and tactilely optimal for deaf learners. Upon graduation, Andy spent eight months working for a military contractor, analyzing and creating sensory-deprived environments for Black Hawk helicopter pilots. From 2011-14, Andy was an adjunct professor at UCLA School of Architecture, where he ran the Teen Architecture Studio program. He was a lecturer at the Knowlton School during the 2010-11 academic year. From 2008-10, he established and administered the Project Link program, an intensive immersion for high school students, at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Andy earned his BA in architecture from the Knowlton School and his MArch from Harvard GSD.
Bryan C. Lee, Jr.
Bryan Lee is the Design Principal of Colloqate and a national Design Justice Advocate. He and Sue Mobley co-founded the firm in 2017, and it received an Architectural League’s Emerging Voices award in 2019. Bryan is the founding organizer of the Design Justice Platform and organized the Design As Protest National Day of Action. He has led two award-winning architecture and design programs for high school students through the Arts Council of New Orleans and the National Organization of Minority Architects. Bryan earned a BS in architecture from the Knowlton School and a Master of Architecture from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He received a 2013 AIA Diversity Recognition Award, was a 2015 Next City Vanguard Fellow, and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2018. He is a Design Critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Samuel Luckino
In 2018, Samuel Luckino joined Goettsch Partners as a principal and senior project manager in the Chicago office. In this role, Sam leads project teams on selected assignments, with a focus on office, hospitality, residential and mixed-use buildings. Before moving to Goettsch, he worked at Arquitectonica for 13 years and served as the director of the New York office. Prior to that, he was a designer at Hillier Architecture, now known as RMJM. Sam holds both a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a Master of Architecture from the Knowlton School, where is also an active participant in the Knowlton Mentorship Program. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a member of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, where he previously served as a City Representative.
Mariko Masuoka
Mariko Masuoka joined Pelli Clark Pelli in 1980. She has been the design principal-in-charge for academic projects, large-scale civic projects, commercial mixed-use developments, and master plans. Mariko is currently leading the design team for 76 Trinity, which includes a podium for the historic New York church’s offices and programs and an office tower, as well as a new interdisciplinary research building for The Ohio State University. Her academic projects include the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film at Vassar College, the Mathematics Building and Lecture Hall at the Institute for Advanced Study, Yale-NUS College campus in Singapore, the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry Building at Ohio State, and Yale Science Building and Malone Engineering Center at Yale University, Yale’s first LEED Gold building. Mariko earned bachelor's and master’s degrees in architecture from Yale University.
Jonathan Moody
Jonathan Moody is President and CEO of Columbus-based Moody Nolan. The firm has grown to over 230 employees and 12 offices across the nation. Its designs have now won over 300 design citations including 46 from the American Institute of Architects and 43 from the National Organization of Minority Architects. Jonathan has helped continue and extend the firm’s position as the largest African-American-owned architecture firm. Moody Nolan continues to garner national attention by promoting “diversity by design.” Jonathan received his BS of architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Architecture from UCLA.
William Murdock
William Murdock serves as executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), Central Ohio’s regional council for local governments that provides services, funding, tools, and resources to 75 member communities comprised of counties, cities, villages, townships, and regional agencies. At MORPC, William oversees innovative planning, services, and policies in transportation, planning, housing, land use, sustainability, and data. Working with a board of over 140 local leaders and more than 20 community committees, he reorganized MORPC to sharpen its focus on collaborative partnerships, proactive planning, and local government services. William is responsible for the development of MORPC’s long-range transportation plan that coordinates over $20 billion of transportation improvements across the region through 2050. He spearheaded the major regional future scenarios effort known as insight2050 and the recently completed Regional Housing Strategy—both major public/private initiatives to prepare for Central Ohio’s significant growth and development—and innovative efforts such as the Smart Region Task Force and Midwest Connect Hyperloop effort. William has four degrees from Ohio State: a BS in economics, BA in political science, a Master of City and Regional Planning, and a Master of Science in Parks, Recreation & Tourism Administration.
Raymond Nix
Raymond Nix is co-founder and Chief Executive of UrbanMatters Development Partners, L.L.C. a District of Columbia CBE (Certified Business Enterprise) real estate development and neighborhood revitalization firm specializing in affordable housing. Ray brings a wealth of hands-on development experience that includes project management, financial management, and community building. He has led the company from start-up to growth with a diverse project pipeline and roster of clients including faith-based institutions, developers, public housing authorities, homebuilders, and local energy utilities. Through his leadership, the company is managing a pipeline of 800+ units in multiple phases of development in the Mid-Atlantic region. He has a track record of successful implementation of community revitalization strategies and use of industry best practices including creative mixed financing and sustainable design. His specialties include: Community Development, Affordable Housing, Public Housing Mixed Financing, Mixed-Income Development, Urban Planning & Neighborhood Revitalization, Master Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Strategic Planning. Ray has two degrees from the Knowlton School: a Master of City and Regional Planning, and a BS in landscape architecture. He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of the College of Engineering in 2020.
Katherine Schill
Katherine Schill is a fiscal analyst for the State of Minnesota House of Representatives. For more than 35 years, Kathy has provided policy and fiscal analysis for two state legislatures—Minnesota and Ohio—and has trained hundreds of legislators and staff about the budget process. She currently staffs the House Tax Committee and the Property Tax and Local Government Finance Division. Throughout her career, Kathy has been active with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) holding a variety of elected and appointed leadership positions, including service on the NCSL Executive Committee, the Legislative Staff Coordinating Committee, and as President of the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices. She holds a Master of City and Regional Planning from the Knowlton School, where she has also taught as a lecturer. Kathy was elected to the Ohio State University Alumni Association Advisory Council in 1999, representing the College of Engineering, and to the OSUAA Board of Directors in 2000.
Laura Solano
Laura Solano is a Partner at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. She is widely regarded as an expert in the field of landscape technology and sustainability, and her leadership and knowledge inform the design, construction, and post-construction maintenance of MVVA’s projects. Her particular areas of expertise include the integration of stormwater management, complexities of on-structure landscapes, use of sustainable soil, innovative approaches for landscape materials, and techniques for organic maintenance. In collaboration with Matt Urbanski and Michael Van Valkenburgh, Laura serves as a managing principal for planning and design projects from their earliest phases and oversees the technical aspects of MVVA’s landscapes firm-wide. Laura is a Distinguished Alumna of the Ohio State College of Engineering and was a Trott Distinguished Visiting professor at Knowlton.
Thaïsa Way
Thaïsa Way is the Resident Program Director for Garden and Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks. She is responsible for leading the programming for GLS including the residential fellowship program, scholarly visitors and events, and senior fellow meetings. Thaïsa holds a PhD from Cornell University, a Master of Architectural History from the University of Virginia, and a BS from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, as well as an urban landscape historian teaching and researching history, theory, and design in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle. Prior to coming to Dumbarton Oaks, Thaïsa served as founding director of Urban@UW, a coalition of urban researchers and teachers collaboratively addressing complex urban challenges, and as Chair of Faculty Senate at the University of Washington.