Lead Juror
Maria R. Perbellini, Assoc. AIA
Maria R. Perbellini serves as Dean and Professor at the New York Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Design, where she leads transformative growth and advances design innovation. She previously held academic leadership positions at Texas Tech University and has taught internationally. As co-founder of Pongratz Perbellini Architects, her work has received numerous international awards and has been widely published. Perbellini has held prominent curatorial and advisory roles, including at the Venice Biennale, and actively participates on several boards and committees within the architecture and design fields. She earned architecture degrees from Venice University IUAV and Pratt Institute and completed the Harvard Management Development Program in Higher Education Leadership. Her accomplishments have been recognized with significant honors, including among others the AIA NY Public Director for Educational Affairs, the AIA LI Educator Award, and the IPA NY Institutional Partner Award, underscoring her influence on architectural education, professional practice, and the global design community.
Joseph Lauro, FAIA
As Co-Managing Director of Gensler's New York office and a member of the firm's Board of Directors, Joseph Lauro has strengthened technical processes, enhanced the firm wide architectural practice, and advanced Gensler's climate action efforts. He is a key originator of the firm's GC3 initiative, an industry-wide challenge to reduce carbon emissions by 2030. A Fellow in the AIA with over three decades of experience, Joseph serves on the Board of the New York Building Congress, chairs the National Board of ACE Mentor Program, serves on the Dean's Advisory Board at NYIT, and supports organizations expanding access to architecture careers for under represented youth.
Theresa M. Genovese, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP
Theresa M. Genovese is a Principal of CetraRuddy Architecture, where she leads the firm's cultural and educational practice — rooted in the belief that a building cannot be understood apart from its landscape, city, and culture. She has guided award-winning projects for universities, public and private schools, libraries, and museums from vision to built reality, with work spanning the United States and Asia and recognized by the AIA, the Society of Architectural and Registered Architects of New York and nationally, and the Lucy Moses Award. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Architecture Review's Civitas: What is City?, recognized with a Graham Foundation Grant Award for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. A LEED Accredited Professional, she is a member of the AIA and SCUP, and regularly serves as a juror and design critic at leading schools of architecture.
Roxana Escobar Kariyannis, Assoc. AIA
Roxana Escobar Kariyannis is the Founder and President of NAWI Inc., a Scan-to-BIM and Art Curation company. She leads with a commitment to safety, technical excellence, and collaborative execution. With over two decades of experience across modern building, transportation, academic, and commercial infrastructure, she delivers coordinated, high-performance solutions from concept through construction. Her dual background in architecture and engineering brings a cross-disciplinary perspective that unites design intent with technical precision. Roxana emphasizes clarity, constructability, and practical problem-solving, and is deeply committed to mentorship, supporting programs that connect students with professionals and strengthen future leaders in the built environment.
Giovanni Santamaria, Ph.D.
Giovanni Santamaria is an architect and educator. He is Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Operations at the School of Architecture and Design at New York Institute of Technology, where he has been also teaching and coordinating several advanced studios and theory courses at undergraduate and graduate level. His research focuses on Landscape and Ecological Urbanism which integrates the scale of architecture in a dimension concerning the history of urban settlements, politics, sociology and technologies but most of all, within the complex ecology of our transforming environments understood through a metabolic approach. Santamaria earned a Ph.D in Architecture and Urban Design from the Facoltà di Architettura of Politecnico di Milano, after obtaining the degree in Architecture from the I.U.A.V. in Venice, Italy. His teaching approach and full commitment towards the growth of his students have shaped a generation of architects and designers who proactively proceeded as ‘agents of change’ within local and global communities through their academic and professional careers. He curated, organized, and participated to several renowned international symposia, exhibitions, and design competitions, receiving prestigious awards global wide for his professional and academic work. He is active in lecturing in Universities between Europe and USA, participating in international design juries, and author of various publications.