Meet our Speakers

The 2026 Conference theme is Living Narratives, celebrating the stories we tell through design: stories that inspire, educate, and connect. Living Narratives explores how culture and ecology shape landscapes that are meaningful, resilient, and rooted in community. “Living” signifies the past, present, and future contexts of the places we design, while “Narratives” refers to the storytelling power those places hold.

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Daniel Wildcat

Daniel Wildcat, Ph.D., is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, and an accomplished scholar who writes on Indigenous knowledge, technology, environment, and education. He is also director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center, which he founded with colleagues from the Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University. Wildcat helped design a four-part video series entitled All Things Are Connected: The Circle of Life (1997), which dealt with the land, air, water, biological, and policy issues facing Native nations. A Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, Wildcat recently formed the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, a tribal-college-centered network of individuals and organizations working on climate change issues. In 2008, he helped organize the Planning for Seven Generations climate change conference sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is the author, most recently, of Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge (2009).

Charles Birnbaum

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is the president, CEO, and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, Birnbaum spent fifteen years as the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative (HLI) and a decade in private practice in New York City, with a focus on landscape preservation and urban design. He is the recipient of a Harvard Loeb Fellowship (1997-98), the Rome Prize (2004) and from ASLA, the Alfred B. LaGasse Medal (2008), President’s Medal (2009) and the ASLA Medal, the Society's highest honor (2017). He founded The Cultural Landscape Foundation in 1998 which is the home to the biennial Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Prize in Landscape Architecture which is endowed in perpetuity and includes a $100,000 award for the laureate. He currently serves as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

Brad McCauley

Brad McCauley, FASLA, PLA, CDT is a Partner and the Managing Principal at Site Design Group, where he leads the firm’s vision and delivery of award-winning public spaces nationwide. Recognized for turning design into built reality and fostering inclusive, collaborative teams, Brad also serves as President of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and has held leadership roles as Vice President of Membership, Trustee, and Illinois Chapter President. Licensed in more than 18 states and certified as a Construction Document Technologist, he brings both design excellence and technical expertise to his practice.