Hayriye Esbah-Tunçay is Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at Istanbul Technical University and a former Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Recognized for her pioneering research in landscape ecology and its effective integration into design, she is a leading figure in the design of sustainable cities in the face of the challenges of climate change. Emphasizing the essential connection between human well-being and ecological harmony, her vision encompasses urban, rural, natural, historic, and cultural landscapes.

Her illustrious career has been honored with numerous publications and research grants, including the Turkish Higher Education Council Fellowship, the prestigious Fulbright Research Fellowship, and various European Union research grants. As the founding director of HET (Habitat-Ecology-Technology), an Istanbul-based landscape architecture and urban design firm, she has led innovative projects that promote climate sustainability and resilience and have received numerous national and international awards and recognitions, including the National Landscape Architecture and Urban Design Awards (eight times). Esbah-Tunçay holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning from Arizona State University and a Master's in Landscape Architecture from the University of Arizona. She is a registered landscape architect with the Turkish Chamber of Landscape Architects and a member of ICOMOS.

Luis Callejas is a professor of landscape architecture at the Oslo School of Architecture and a visiting professor at Harvard University (2023–2026). His research bridges architecture and landscape architecture, focusing on geographic themes shared by both disciplines and on how climate change reshapes design pedagogy. Callejas’ projects span master plans, cities, gardens, and large landscapes, including the exterior renovation of Oslo's former US embassy by Eero Saarinen, the aquatic center for the XI South American Games, and the “El Campin” stadium in Bogotá. In 2022, his studio was chosen to contribute to future Norwegian Scenic Routes projects.

Honored with the Architectural League of New York Prize (2013) and recognized as a top emerging studio by Metropolis Magazine (2016), Callejas has exhibited his work globally at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Lisbon Triennial, the Seoul Biennale, and the Venice Biennale. His publications include Pamphlet Architecture 33 and Pedagogical Experiments for a Changing Climate (2023). Callejas has held teaching and fellowship positions at Yale, Edinburgh, Harvard, and various international universities, and has served on prominent design juries and as a visiting critic at numerous institutions.

Principal director of Michel Desvigne Landscape Architects, Michel Desvigne has been designing landscapes for 19 years. He initially graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Lyon and then from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Paysage in Versailles. Throughout his career and on current projects, Michel Desvigne has collaborated with the world's leading architects, including Paul Andreu, Sir Norman Foster, Herzog and de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, I. M. Pei, Christian de Portzamparc, Jean Nouvel, Richard Rogers, Bernard Tschumi... Michel Desvigne teaches and researches at the ENSP in Versailles, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, the Institut d'Architecture in Geneva and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2000, Michel Desvigne received the Medal of the French Academy of Architecture and in 2003 he was nominated for the ‘Grand prix de l'urbanisme’.

Jury Chair Gary Hilderbrand is the Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is the current Chair of the GSD’s Department of Landscape Architecture. He is also Principal of Reed Hilderbrand, a landscape architecture practice in Cambridge and New Haven. His honors include Harvard University’s Charles Eliot Traveling Fellowship, the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture, and the 2013 ASLA Firm of the Year award. Hilderbrand is the recipient of the 2017 ASLA Design Medal. Design Intelligence named him one of its “25 Most Admired Educators” of 2016.

Through three widely acclaimed books and two dozen essays, Hilderbrand has helped to position landscape architecture’s role in reconciling intellectual and cultural traditions with contemporary forces of urbanization and change. As a teacher, designer, and critic, Hilderbrand brings forward a passion for landscape architecture’s history and its future potential everywhere he works. He leads commissions that draw upon the traditions of American landscape architecture while also facing the major global crises of our time—climate change and environmental justice. Since co-founding Reed Hilderbrand in 2000 with Douglas Reed, he has been responsible for several projects that enrich and advance urban forestry practices, from a single plaza to a district to an entire city. 

HUANG Wenjing, founding partner of OPEN Architecture, Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, visiting professor at the Tsinghua University, China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and the University of Hong Kong. Huang received her B. Arch. from Tsinghua University in 1996, and her M. Arch. from Princeton University in 1999. She is a licensed architect in New York State and a member of the AIA. Prior to OPEN, HUANG was a senior designer and associate at the New York-based firm Pei Cobb Freed and Partners.

HUANG Wenjing and LI Hu co-founded OPEN in New York City in 2006 and established the studio’s Beijing office in 2008. Some major projects by OPEN include: UCCA Dune Art Museum, Chapel of Sound, Sun Tower, Tank Shanghai, Shanfeng Academy, Shanghai Qingpu Pinghe International School, Pingshan Performing Arts Center, Tsinghua Ocean Center, Garden School/Beijing No.4 High School Fangshan Campus, and Gehua Youth and Cultural Center.

OPEN’s work has been widely recognized, with recent awards including the AIA International Design Awards Honor Award (US), Arcasia Awards Gold Award, Design for Asia Awards, LEAF Awards (EU), AR Future Project Awards (UK), P/A Awards (US), AZ Awards (CAN), AIA Education Facility Design Award of Excellence (US), Civic Trust Awards (UK), Iconic Awards Best of Best (GER), and the Winning Prize of the WA Awards for Chinese Architecture, among many others.