After Hours: Meet the Speakers
The Trinity Park Conservancy is excited to host local experts for a discussion centered on equity, parks, & placemaking. Meet our panelists for our November After Hours event.
Join us for After Hours on Monday, November 12th from 5:30-7pm. You can RSVP to After Hours here! This event is free and open to the public.
Jerry L. Hawkins is the Director of Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation. Dallas TRHT will be broadly inclusive, nonpartisan and collaborative in nature, and will constantly add to the collection of people and organizations interested in contributing to improving Dallas for all of its residents, no matter what their race or background. Jerry was formerly the Project Director for the Bachman Lake Together Project and Zero to Five Funders Collaborative. He is also an Equity and Educational Consultant and Advocate. He was formerly a Male Involvement Specialist and Parenting Facilitator for the Chicago Urban League’s Male Involvement Program, where he served for almost eight years. From 1990 through 1996, Jerry was the recipient of an A.R.T. Scholarship and a Teacher’s Assistantship to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a six year study of fine arts, studio drawing, graphic design and computer graphic design, and later received his B.S. in Early Childhood Education and Child & Family Services from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Lizzie MacWillie is the Associate Director at buildingcommunity WORKSHOP. Lizzie leads PeopleOrganizing Place, the participatory city shaping initiative that positions local stakeholders as experts to proactively shape their neighborhood’s future. She brings critical design experience managing [bc]’s multi-year creative-placemaking initiative, Activating Vacancy, bringing people together to share food, stories, art, experience, and histories as well as enabling neighbors to talk, to learn, and to organize. Prior to joining [bc], Lizzie was a part of OMA/AMO in Rotterdam, NL, as an editor of “Elements of Architecture” by Rem Koolhaas, a collection of books about 15 basic units of architecture. She received a Master of Architecture in Urban Design and a Master of Design Studies in Art, Design and the Public Domain from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Architecture from CarnegieMellon University.
Isaac Cohen, joined Studio Outside in July 2017 and brings a decade of experience working on all aspects of park and urban public space issues. He spent this time working with communities around the country on advocacy and fundraising to build urban park, and on engagement and research into critical issues impacting the use of public space. He brings a wealth of knowledge of Dallas neighborhoods, history, and landscapes that he hopes to integrate into the studio.
He is inspired by building relationships with the communities he works with and finding ways to represent and elevate their history, experiences, and connections to the land in an artful way. In Dallas, he has worked on a range of projects including Activating Vacancy, an arts and placemaking initiative in the Tenth Street Historic District; Little Free Libraries/Libros Libres, a literacy and placemaking project and an analysis of the relationship between Dallas’ public park system and residential racial segregation and movement within the city. His work has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally.
Isaac has a Bachelors of Arts with honors in Studio Art from Vassar College and a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Virginia where he was awarded as the University Olmsted Scholar. In his free time, he can be found exploring close to home and far afield, cooking, reading, and making art.
Brent A. Brown, AIA, is CEO and President of Trinity Park Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to the vision of the Trinity River as a public space that unites the city, creates economic development, provides access for people to nature, and inspires stewardship for the river ecosystem. Building on his experience as an architect, city planner, and urban designer, Brent will guide the Trinity Park Conservancy in delivering the 200-acre plus Harold Simmons Park as the first realization of this vision.
Brent also serves as Chairman of the Board for buildingcommunity WORKSHOP [bc], an organization he founded in 2005 to solve difficult problems and enhance livability for all citizens. He has also served as Founding Director of the City of Dallas’ CityDesign Studio and Dallas’ Design Director stewarding the urban design vision for the city as well as a member of the International Advisory Board of Rotterdam, providing advice on matters of economic development and other aspects of the urban development.
Winner of dozens of local, national and international awards, he is especially proud to have been selected as a 2013 Rudy Bruner Award Silver Medalist, recognizing innovative thinking about the built environment and advancing conversation about making cities better and the Copper-Hewitt’s inclusion of his work in the recent exhibition, By the People: Designing a Better America.