STEFANO R. PACI, AIA
Architect + designer
Stefano Paci is a New York State–registered architect whose work is shaped by a careful attention to proportion, material, site, and natural light. His approach brings together the practical and poetic dimensions of architecture, balancing program, budget, technical knowledge, and the particular qualities of place to create environments that feel ordered, enduring, and memorable.
Over the course of his career, Stefano has worked with leading architecture practices including Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Rogers Partners, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Mitchell-Giurgola Architects. His experience spans projects at multiple scales, from complex institutional and large-scale work to smaller, highly detailed commissions, often leading multidisciplinary teams of architects and consultants.
Stefano holds a B.A. and M.Arch. from Columbia University and an M.A. in Architectural History from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. He has also studied architectural history at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and art history at the CUNY Graduate Center.
ALISON J. MEARS, AIA, LEED AP
Architect, educator + researcher
Alison Mears is an architect, educator, and researcher whose work explores the relationship between design, material health, and environmental justice. She is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Parsons School of Design and co-founder of the Healthy Materials Lab, where she has helped advance research and education around healthier building materials and the impacts of the built environment on human and planetary health.
Her work combines architectural practice with teaching, research, and community-based design. She has lectured widely on material health and collaborated on projects that foreground healthier materials, social equity, and environmental responsibility.
In 2022, Mears and HML co-director Jonsara Ruth received Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Innovation Award. Together they co-edited Material Health: Design Frontiers in 2023. In 2024, Mears co-founded HML EU gGmbH in Wiesbaden, Germany, extending this work within a European context.
Mears holds architecture degrees from the University of Canberra and Columbia University and taught architectural design at Parsons from 2002–2026.