Lou Host-Jablonski, AIA, Principal, Design Coalition Inc., Madison Wisconsin, and Senior Outreach Specialist, Department of Landscape Architecture, UW-Madison.

Lou is currently the lead Architect on the “Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country” Initiative. Design Coalition is a non-profit architecture and community development organization. Lou's areas of professional focus are 'sustainable' design and planning, and environments for children. Lou uses his own home as a research station and a teaching/demonstration facility for sustainable alternative construction methods, where he regularly teaches hands-on natural home-building workshops. Lou's projects have included multi-family housing, including cohousing; childcare centers; new homes and additions; community-built projects; community centers; and home designs for persons with disabilities and chemical sensitivities. Lou is a regular guest on public radio, and a featured speaker at the Midwest Energy Fair. Recent projects include a forty-unit sustainably-designed urban cohousing project, and a 39-unit LEED certified apartment/condo project. When he is on his own time, Lou enjoys the company of his children and grandchildren, works on his house, and plays fiddle and smallpipes with Onadaire, a Madison-based Celtic/Traditional music band.

Shawn T. Kelly, FASLA, CLARB, Principal, Kelly Design Group, Lake Geneva Wisconsin, and Distinguished Faculty Associate, Department of Landscape Architecture, UW-Madison.

Shawn is co-founder of the Community Design Action Research Group and the lead Landscape Architect on the “Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country” initiative. Shawn has taught the core classes in the professional program in Landscape Architecture at the UW-Madison since 1995. Kelly Design group is a design/bid studio specializing in ecological design since 1988. Shawn’s projects have included zoos and college campuses, commercial sites, municipal projects, restoration plans, and residential and estate plans. Shawn has participated in projects in Spain, Mexico, and many of the continental United States. Shawn has also worked for the Agency for International Development and Consortium for International Development in Africa, where he worked with indigenous people to track the condition of the local ecology through sampling and field work. On breaks between his practice, teaching, and outreach, Shawn can be found with his family; on a boat on Lake Geneva, on road trips, or quiet evenings at home with the family dogs.

Douglas Piltingsrud, PhD Inorganic Chemistry, Sole Proprietor, Sustainable Housing Research LLC, Pine Island MN and lead chemistry and equipment engineering researcher in the “Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country” Initiative.

Doug has 20 plus years of experience in the pigments and computer industries doing research, product development, inventing, patenting, and manufacturing scale-up of new material compositions, new processes and equipment selection. Inventions from his work have resulted in 13 US patents. His specialties are in inorganic, surfactant, particulate, aqueous and surface chemistry phenomenon and processing equipment for particulates as pigments or clay. He has done independent international chemical consulting and currently works as a private researcher and consultant in earthen construction materials and healthy home design. Doug’s research in sustainable housing started in 2001 and has included workshops with Design Coalition Inc., presentations at the Midwest Energy Fair and the Iowa Bioneers Conf. and Natural Housing classes with Community Education. His current research includes local clay sourcing by raw loam refinement, earthen plaster composition, permeance and durability and soft ceramic floor durability (earthen floors). The lab always beckons him to come and play but he also takes time for the Pine Island Toastmasters Club, gardening, studying biological farming, running and biking, movie nights with friends, and the annual honeymoon with his wife.

Susan Thering, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and UW-Extension State Specialist, Department of Landscape Architecture, UW-Madison.

Sue is the co-founder of the department's Community Design Action Research Group and the Project Coordinator for the Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country Initiative. Sue coordinates transdisciplinary action research partnerships with colleagues in academia, non-profit organizations, and government agencies to forward socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable preservation and development in communities and neighborhoods historically underserved by the design professions. She has received federal grants from the DOI, HUD, DOA, USDA, and the NEA. Sue enjoys gatherings of her children, extended family, and friends for cook-outs, sing-alongs, and nature walks.

Recent Presentations and Publications:
A Practical Theory-Based Approach to Action-Research in Survivor Communities
The Green Community Development in Indian County Initiative