Principal and Global Resiliency Director, Perkins+Will
As Principal and Global Resiliency Director Janice works with public and private clients to identify their risks and vulnerabilities and to meet their resiliency goals. With nearly 30 years of design experience bridging practical applications with empirical research, Janice recognizes critical organizational processes and links these to appropriate design responses.
Internationally recognized for this expertise, Janice co-chairs the firm’s Resiliency Task Force linking environmental, social and economic indicators to advance resiliency principles in design and to connect expertise across communities. She also oversees the Resiliency Lab of AREA, a 501(c)(3) focused on integrating research into design practice.
In the last two years, she has worked extensively with the Rockefeller Foundation on the National Disaster Resiliency Competition, a HUD-sponsored, $1 Billion, effort to strengthen resiliency in communities with federally-declared disasters. Working with the City of New Orleans, the State of California, the State of New York and the State of New Jersey among others, Janice guided the teams through critical self-assessments to develop unique strategies that ultimately enabled them to secure significant funding.
Following the work with the NDRC, Janice worked with the City of Chicago on the development of its first Resilience Americorps VISTA program, focusing attention on Chicago’s near west side where chronic flooding, coupled with underemployment and ongoing crime, challenge residents to meet their basic needs.
Drawing from these experiences, Janice then worked once again with the Rockefeller Foundation on the first Global Resilience Academy in which the Foundation sought to broaden the exposure of resiliency strategies across its many departments and to understand how the resiliency toolkits applied to the various programs and initiatives underway. This was followed with further testing of the toolkits with the World Bank Yemen Programs.
In her work with the District of Columbia District Department of the Environment, Janice led a team including Dr. Katherine Hayhoe who developed the climate projections and Kleinfelder who analyzed infrastructure vulnerabilites, in the development of the District’s first Climate Adaptation Plan. A summary report and the accompanying technical reports are posted on the DOEE website.
Beyond the work with these clients, Janice also participates on the board of several organizations focused on improving overall resiliency and sustainability in our cities. These include the Urban Land Institute New York City Chapter where she participates on the Advisory Board, the Tri-State Land Use Committee, the ULI Excellence Awards and the Technical Advisory Panel Committee. In 2016, the ULI New York Chapter was awarded a $100,000 New York Community Trust Grant to focus on resiliency planning in New York.
She also is on her second term with Urban Green, the New York City chapter of the USGBC. Additionally she participates in the AIA New York City Design for Risk and Recovery committee.