Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect, author and Professor emeritus at Aalto  University. Pallasmaa has written and lectured extensively across the world for  over 45 years on architecture, the visual arts, environmental phenomenology, and  cultural philosophy. 

Among the many academic and civic positions he has held are those of Director of  the Museum of Finnish Architecture and head of the Institute of Industrial Arts,  Helsinki. He established his own architect’s office in 1983 in Helsinki. He has  taught architecture at many universities around the world, including the  Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,  and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin School. Pallasmaa has lectured widely in Europe,  North and South America, Africa and Asia. 

Among Pallasmaa’s many books on architectural theory is The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses, a book that has become a classic of architectural  theory and is required reading in many schools of architecture around the world.  Selected essays written by Pallasmaa, from the early years to more recent ones,  have been translated into English and collated together in two volumes, Encounters 1 and 2 – Architectural Essays, edited by Peter MacKeith. Pallasmaa  was a member of the jury on the Pritzker Prize Committee. He is a member of the  Finnish Association of Architects, an honorary Fellow of the American Institute of  Architects, an honorary member of SAFA and IntFRIBA.  

Pallasmaa’s new book ”Rootedness: reflection for young architects” has just been published by Wiley in London.

Álvaro Siza Vieira is one of the most distinguished and highly awarded architects  in the world. He works in Porto, Portugal. "Every design," says Siza, "is a rigorous  attempt to capture a concrete moment of a transitory image in all its nuances. The  extent to which this transitory quality is captured, is reflected in the designs: the  more precise they are, the more vulnerable." 

Siza, whose full name is Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Viéira, was born on June 25, 1933 in the small coastal town of Matosinhos, just north of Porto, Portugal. Siza studied at the University of Porto School of Architecture from 1949 through 1955, completing his first built works (four houses in Matosinhos) even before ending  his studies in 1954. 

In 1966, Siza began teaching at the University, and in 1976, he was made a  tenured Professor of Architecture. In addition to his teaching there, he has been a  visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the  University of Pennsylvania; Los Andes University of Bogota; and the Ecole  Polytechnique of Lausanne. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer at many  universities and conferences throughout the world, from the United States,  Colombia and Argentina to Spain, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands,  Switzerland, Austria and England in Europe. 

He received the Pritzker Prize in 1992. He also received honors from foundations  and institutions in Europe, including the Alvar Aalto Foundation Gold Medal in  1988, the renowned Mies van der Rohe Foundation Award, the RIBA Gold Medal,  the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, and many others.

Vitorio Gallese, MD, studied medicine at the University of Parma, Italy, and was awarded a degree in Neurology in 1990. He is a Full Professor of Psychobiology, Dept. of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma, Honorary Fellow at the  Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study of the University of London, UK  and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Dept. of Art History and Archaeology,  Columbia University, New York, USA. He is coordinator of the PhD Program in  Neuroscience and Director of the Doctoral School of Medicine of the University of  Parma. 

As a cognitive neuroscientist, his research focuses on the relationship between the  sensory-motor system and cognition, both in non-human primates and humans  using a variety of neurophysiological and functional neuroimaging techniques  applied to the study of intersubjectivity, empathy, language, mindreading and  aesthetics. Among his major contributions is the discovery, together with the  colleagues of Parma, of mirror neurons, and the elaboration of a theoretical  model of basic aspects of social cognition, Embodied Simulation Theory.

Tatiana Berger (Princeton University, UC Berkeley) is an architect, urban designer,  entrepreneur, consultant and educator. She has worked for over 35 years in the  U.S., Portugal, Spain and Austria. Her built works, collaborations and community  plans were published in international periodicals and presented in exhibitions in  Europe and U.S. Berger worked with Richard Meier in New York, was Director of  the Sochi Olympics 2014 project for ILF Engineers and project architect for  Baumschlager-Eberle in Bregenz, Austria. From 1997-2004 she worked as project  architect and manager in the office of Alvaro Siza in Porto. Berger's built work,  designed in collaboration with architects named above, is found in Porto, Lisbon  and Viana do Castelo in Portugal, and also in Austria, the Netherlands, China,  Russia and the U.S.  

Berger is Founder of Moving Boundaries Collaborative. She was Associate  Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the NewSchool of Architecture &  Design in San Diego and Professor of Architecture at the Boston Architectural  College. A member of the Advisory Council of the Academy of Neuroscience for  Architecture (ANFA), for over seven years she developed a new curriculum in  architectural theory and studio with a focus on ANFA themes as faculty in the  pioneering Neuroscience for Architecture Program at NewSchool. She leads the  ANFA Center for Education (ACE), an international forum for educators dedicated  to reimagining design education.