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For Thursday 02/06/25, the campus will be closed until 12 noon today due to the severe weather. All classes scheduled after 12 noon will take place as scheduled. Students should check Canvas for details on classes.

Mass Timber Symposium

September 19, 2024

Mass Timber Symposium

This innovative event aims to motivate our guests to tackle the complex challenges of creating sustainable buildings that can withstand and adapt to various environmental, social, and economic pressures.

Register for one or both days:

  • Thursday, September 19th from 9am - 5pm
  • Friday, September 20th from 9am - noon

Registrants will receive a light breakfast and boxed lunch both days.

Moderators: Dean Karl Daubmann and adjunct professor Sadashiv Mallya.

Our esteemed panelists:

  • Sandra Lupien, MPP Director, Mass Timber @MSU
  • Patricia Layton, Director of Clemson’s Wood Utilization + Design Institute and professor of forestry
  • Michaela Harms,Senior Director of Mass Timber at Sterling Structural
  • Jake Chidester, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation, Bedrock
  • Alexis Coir, Project Lead, Architect, Waechter Architecture
  • Scott Gustafson, Senior Architect, HED
  • Adam Smith, Director of Design, Synecdoche
  • Nate Sosin, Principal, Thornton Tomasetti

CEU: This lecture equals 1 professional architecture credit. This lecture is free and open to the public.

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Sandra Lupien, Director of MassTimber@MSU, a program at Michigan State University

ABOUT: Sandra Lupien is the Director of MassTimber@MSU, a program at Michigan State University that harnesses outreach, communications, research, education, policy, and partnerships to advance mass timber construction and manufacture in Michigan and the surrounding region. Sandra has two decades of diverse policy, communications, external affairs, and leadership experience in the non-profit, public, and private sectors, most of it working at the intersection of climate change, natural resource policy, and equitable and sustainable community development. While pursuing a mid-career Master of Public Policy at University of California Berkeley, Sandra caught the mass timber bug in 2016, which led her to do at least three things: 1) research what it would take to pivot her small beetle-kill pine furniture company to mass timber manufacturer; 2) to write her Master’s thesis “Removing Barriers to Cross-Laminated Timber Manufacture and Adoption in California: A gamechanger for forests, wildfire, and climate;” and 3) to seize the opportunity to harness her knowledge and passion to help advance mass timber construction and manufacture in Michigan – her home state – in this new position at MSU. Immediately before joining MSU in July of 2021, Sandra served as Deputy Director for External Affairs and Communications in the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and the California Strategic Growth Council.

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Patricia Layton, Director of Clemson’s Wood Utilization + Design Institute and a retired professor of forestry

ABOUT: Pat Layton is the Director of Clemson’s Wood Utilization + Design Institute and a retired professor of forestry. She spent 14 of her 25 years at Clemson as Director of the School of Agricultural, Forest, and Environmental Sciences and chairing the two predecessor Departments (Forest Resources and Forestry and Natural Resources). Before joining Clemson University, she held various positions with the American Forest & Paper Association, Scott Paper Company, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Owens Illinois. She serves on the Board of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Pat is a native of South Carolina and has forestry degrees from Clemson University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Florida.

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Nate Sosin, Principal, Thornton Tomasetti

ABOUT: Nate Sosin joined Thornton Tomasetti in 2008 and leads multidisciplinary teams on projects of all scales regionally, nationally and internationally. He is a licensed structural engineer, professional engineer and LEED-accredited professional with a passion for collaborating across disciplines to develop world-class buildings with an emphasis on performance, constructability and economy. Nate’s experience spans the healthcare, government, cultural, higher education, commercial and aviation market sectors, and includes 12 years teaching Masters of Architecture students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Michaela Harms, Senior Director of Mass Timber, Sterling Structural

ABOUT: Michaela Harms has co-written and managed nearly $4M in USDA grant funded research focused on mass timber construction and small-diameter utilization. She specializes in business development, strategy, standards compliance and engineering within the forest products and sustainable construction sectors. Her prior experience includes leading the R&D/Strategy department for a structural round and heavy timber manufacturer, serving as the engineered wood products and sustainable forestry expert for an international certification body and managing algorithm and business development for construction life cycle assessment software. Her work has been published in Structures Magazine and in 2021 she presented to Wisconsin State Government officials, making the case for mass timber building code updates to support Wisconsin’s woodland economies. She currently serves as Senior Director of Mass Timber at Sterling Structural, a division of North America’s largest CLT manufacturer. Michaela holds a degree in Civil Engineering focused on Sustainable Building from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland.

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Jake Chidester, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation, Bedrock

ABOUT: A cross-disciplinary creative problem solver, designer, and educator with a 20- year varied background in most areas of real estate development, inclusive of urban planning, commercial and multifamily architecture, asset positioning, historic preservation, community engagement, marketing, leasing, and economic/ business development strategies. Jake is the VP of the Office of Urban Strategy and Innovation: an agile Think Tank within Bedrock tasked with exploring innovative urban strategies, partnerships, and ventures to address long-standing challenges in our Cities. Since joining Bedrock in 2015, Jake has held multiple roles within the enterprise, including Design Director, and Director of Community Development. Jake is currently a fellow of the World Economic Forum’s Center for Urban Transformation. Prior to joining Bedrock, Jake worked in architecture practice for over a decade in national and international mixed-use development, and served as adjunct faculty at the College of Architecture and Design at Lawrence Technological University, his alma mater.

Adam Smith_Synecdoche headshot - Adam Smith

Adam Smith, Vice President, Director of Design at Synecdoche

ABOUT: Director of Design and Co-founder of Synecdoche (si-nek-duh-kee), an award winning interdisciplinary architecture studio in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Adam leads the studio with architectural design, urbanism, and fabrication. The studio is currently focused on multi-family housing projects and advancing tall mass timber building codes in Michigan through the design and approval process of SouthTown, the first tall mass timber building in Michigan. Adam is also a Lecturer at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning teaching graduate design studios about housing and livable urbanism. Adam is a licensed Architect in Michigan and Wisconsin. An alumni of University of Michigan M.Arch ‘11 and Lawrence Technological University, B.S. Arch ‘09. Adam has also served on the board of AIA Huron Valley as the Emerging Professionals director, to lift the voice of young design professionals working within the profession. As an avid mobility enthusiast, Adam works with bike advocacy groups to make cycling a priority for transportation design and development.

Alexis-Coir_2024 headshot - Alexis Coir

Alexis Coir, Associate, Weachter Architecture

ABOUT: Alexis is an alumnus of the University of Michigan where she earned a B.S.Arch with distinction, and Harvard University where she graduated with a M.Arch with distinction. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Alexis spent her childhood growing up in the arts & architecture community of Cranbrook, where her father was the director of archives. The dichotomy of city to campus strongly shaped her relationship to architecture and the built environment. She is currently an Associate at Waechter Architecture in Portland, Oregon where she led the design construction of the Mississippi Workshop – an innovative CLT building that pushes the boundaries of seismic design and fire engineering. Before joining WA, she worked at multiple firms including PLY Architecture in Ann Arbor, MI, Marble Fairbanks, A+I, and Frederick Tang Architecture in New York City. In additional to her primary role as a Project Lead at WA, Alexis holds a deep interest in architectural education and historical analysis. She co-taught a studio course at the University of Oregon's Portland campus titled “The All-Wood Building”, and has worked for more than a decade digitally reconstructing Cistercian gothic structures for academic publication with a team of archaeologists from Brown University. Alexis is a registered architect in the State of New York.

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Scott M B Gustafson, Senior Architect, HEB

ABOUT: My passion and specialty is the creation of building and spaces that delight all the body's senses. The human experience of the world is multi-sensory, and much of our time is spent in designed spaces, both indoors and outside. Bad lighting, harsh sounds, uncomfortable seating, ugly signage, and flimsy materials attack our senses and dignity at every turn. My goal is to design places that make people feel comfortable, welcomed, cared for and loved. In this environment we are well poised to do our best work, to live life richly, foster meaningful connections and feel at peace. I am a registered architect in the states of Arizona, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan and the countries of Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden. I am a registered Interior Designer in the states of Illinois and Indiana.

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