WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities Jury
PRIZE JURY
The Jury is a distinguished group of urban leaders and visionaries. Jury members draw on their unique and diverse experiences and expertise to select the winning submission from five finalists through a deliberative process.
Stephen M. Ross is the CEO and Chairman of Related Ross, Founder and Chairman of Related Companies, Owner of the Miami Dolphins and devoted philanthropist. Mr. Ross formed Related Companies in 1972 and today the company has over $60 billion in real estate assets owned or under development, including mixed-use, residential, retail and office properties in premier high-barrier-to-entry markets. The company is also one of the largest owners and preservationists of affordable housing in the country. In 2024, Mr. Ross founded and became Chief Executive of Related Ross, already the largest commercial-property owner in downtown West Palm Beach focused on continued development and inclusive economic growth across South Florida. His philanthropic efforts have broadly focused on the areas of education, the arts, racial equality, healthcare and the creation of more sustainable cities throughout the world. Mr. Ross proudly serves on the Executive Committee as a trustee of Lincoln Center, as a trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and as a director on the boards of Cornell Tech, the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the New York Stem Cell Foundation. Mr. Ross is a leader and former board member of the World Resources Institute (WRI) where he established WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. He is the largest single donor to the University of Michigan supporting the Ross School of Business. In 2013, Mr. Ross pledged to give more than half of his estate to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations through the Giving Pledge, a long-term global initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that aims to inspire deeper engagement in philanthropy and increase charitable giving globally. Mr. Ross has received the National Building Museum Honor Award, the National Housing Conference’s Housing Person of the Year award as well as REBNY’s Harry B. Helmsley Distinguished New Yorker Award. Mr. Ross graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, from Wayne State University Law School with a Juris Doctor degree and from New York University School of Law with a Master of Laws in Taxation. In 2011 the University of Michigan awarded Mr. Ross an honorary degree, Doctor of Laws.
Tatiana Bilbao began her eponymous studio in 2004 with the aim of integrating social values, collaboration and sensitive design approaches to architectural work. The work of the office intersects with research allowing to design for diverse circumstances and in reconstruction or crisis scenarios. Prior to founding her firm, Bilbao was an Advisor in the Ministry of Development and Housing of the Government of the Federal District of Mexico City, during this period she was part of the General Development Directorate of the Advisory Council for Urban Development in the City.
Bilbao holds a recurring teaching position at Yale University School of Architecture and has taught at Harvard University GSD, Columbia University GSAPP, Rice University, University of Andrés Bello in Chile, and Peter Behrens School of Arts at HS Dusseldorf in Germany. Her work has been published in The New York Times, A + U, Domus, Arquitectura Viva, El País, among others.
Also, Bilbao has been recognized with the Kunstpreis Berlin in 2012, was named in 2010 as an Emerging Voice by the Architecture League of New York, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture Prize by the LOCUS Foundation in 2014, the Marcus Prize Award 2019, Tau Sigma Delta Gold Medal of 2020, The Honorary Fellow of The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) in 2021, Richard Neutra Award, the AW Architect in 2022 and most recently The Miller Prize in 2023.
Dave A. Chokshi — a practicing physician and public health leader — is currently the Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the City College of New York. He is also Chair of the Common Health Coalition and Co-Chair of the Health and Political Economy Project. Dr. Chokshi previously served as the 43rd Health Commissioner of New York City. From 2020-2022, he led the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New Yorkers.
Earlier, he was the inaugural Chief Population Health Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), the largest public healthcare system in the nation, where he also served as CEO of the H+H Accountable Care Organization. Dr. Chokshi has practiced primary care internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital since 2014. He has held successive senior leadership roles that span the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and is currently a board member for KFF, Community Solutions, Rock Health, and Yuvo Health. A Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, he is nationally recognized as a transformational leader, a clinical innovator, a policy expert, and an advocate for a stronger and more equitable health system.
As the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative City Leader in Residence, Jennifer Musisi has played a key role in advising on the practitioner perspectives and impact of the Initiative, with a particular emphasis on programming for cities outside of the United States. As a resource for faculty, students, staff, participating mayors and other city leaders, she has shared insights and information on leadership, innovation and solutions to problems common across cities. Additionally, she is the protagonist in a number of case studies within and outside Harvard University.
Jennifer is a transformational leader with three decades of experience in turning around institutions and systems in challenging settings. She was the first Executive Director of Kampala, the Capital City of Uganda (a role comparable to mayor, chief executive or city manager). She has earned a Global reputation for integrity, leadership, innovation, and building strong systems to overcome corruption, inadequate financing and dysfunction. She automated revenue management and service delivery systems and mobilized local and international finances to implement a wide range of sustainable development projects. She initiated projects for climate resilience, youth empowerment and poverty alleviation using innovative and appropriate approaches.
A strong advocate for climate resilience, Jennifer was appointed a UN Ambassador for Sustainable Development under Goal 11. As Commissioner for Legal Services and Board Affairs, Jennifer was one of the team of three that implemented the transformation of Uganda Revenue Authority, turning it into a reputable, world-class tax entity.
Jennifer started her career as a state attorney in Uganda and later served as in-house counsel. She is a speaker, trainer, and mentor on leadership, institutional transformation and sustainable urban development.
She has received over 30 awards and accolades in recognition of her work and accomplishments. Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honors) and Master of Public Administration & Management from Makerere University in Kampala, as well as a Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre, also in Kampala.
Below are a selection of Jennifer’s current and past associations:
- Member, Board of Directors, C40 Cities
- Jury Member, WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities
- Expert Reviewer, Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge
- Council Member, Global Future Council on Cities For Tomorrow, World Economic Forum
- UN Ambassador for SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities
- Member, Addis Ababa Urban Age Task Force
- Senior Policy Advisor, International Growth Centre
- Jury Member, Dubai International Award for Best Practice
- Council Member, Cities that Work
- Senior Advisor, International Growth Centre
- Member, Newsweek Momentum Awards Council
- Visitor of Practice, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University
- Commissioner, International Development Infrastructure Commission, DFID
Henk Ovink is the Executive Director and founding Commissioner for the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. He was the first global water ambassador, appointed in 2015 by the Dutch Cabinet as Special Envoy for International Water Affairs. As Ambassador to the UN on Water he led the second UN Water Conference in 2023, the first since 1977. Henk is also the Chair of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Board of Governors.
Henk served on President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force where he led the long-term innovation, resilience, and rebuilding efforts and developed and led the groundbreaking ‘Rebuild by Design’ competition. Before joining the Task Force Ovink was both Acting Director General of Spatial Planning and Water Affairs and Director National Spatial Planning for the Netherlands after multiple roles in the private sector and academia.
Henk holds an honorary doctorate at Delft University, is associate professor at the University of Groningen in Climate Adaptation and Water Management and visiting fellow at Professor Mariana Mazzucato’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL London. In 2023 Henk Ovink was the 10th recipient of the Foreign Affairs Decoration of Honor in Gold for his global leadership on water diplomacy.
An architect and engineer by training, Carlo Ratti works on the future of cities and the built environment. He is a Professor of the Practice of Urban Technologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a Full Professor in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. He is a founding partner of the international architecture and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and has established several tech start-ups in the United States and Europe. Ratti graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris and later carried out his MPhil and Ph.D. work at the University of Cambridge - completing his Ph.D. thesis as a Fulbright Scholar at MIT. In December 2023, he was named as Curator of the Venice Biennale Architettura 2025.
One of the top ten most-cited scholars in urban planning, Ratti has co-authored over 750 academic publications. His books include the recent “Atlas of the Senseable City” (Yale University Press, with Antoine Picon, 2023), “Urbanità” (Einaudi, 2022), and “Open Source Architecture (Thames & Hudson/Einaudi, with Matthew Claudel, 2015). He has developed applied research projects in collaboration with companies and local/national governments across five continents. He has written op-eds for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Scientific American, Financial Times, Le Monde, and Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
He has consulted international bodies from the European Union to the Queensland Government. He was a curator of the BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin, the Future Food District Pavilion for the 2015 World Expo in Milan, the chief curator at the 8th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen, and a creative mediator at the European Nomadic Biennale Manifesta 14 Prishtina. Carlo has been a presenter at TED (in 2011 and 2015) and was program director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design in Moscow. He is currently serving as co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization.
Ratti’s work has been exhibited worldwide at venues including New York City's MoMA, the Venice Biennale, the Science Museum in London, Expo 2015 Milan, and Expo 2020 Dubai. His focus on many scales of innovation– from products to buildings to cities – has led CRA to become the only design firm in the world to feature on TIME’s “Best Inventions of the Year” list three different times (2007, 2014, 2019). He has appeared as one of “50 people who will change the world” according to Wired. Fast Company hailed him as one of the “Most Influential Designers in America,” and Blueprint Magazine listed him as one of its “People Who Will Change the World of Design.” Bloomberg dubbed him the “Sensory City Philosopher.”
For further information visit www.carloratti.com and www.senseable.mit.edu
Weiping Wu has been Columbia University’s Vice Provost for Academic Programs since September 2023, and Professor and Director of the M.S. in Urban Planning program at its Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) since 2016. Trained in architecture and urban planning, Professor Wu is an internationally acclaimed urban and planning scholar working on urbanization in the global context with a specific expertise in issues of migration, housing, and infrastructure of Chinese cities. Among her many books and other publications, two have a strong public presence: The Chinese City (now in second edition) and China Urbanizing: Impacts and Transitions. Beyond the university setting, Professor Wu is a member and former chair of the Planning Accreditation Board (PAB), chairs the Social and Behavioral Sciences sub-panel of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, and serves on the nomination committee for the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize. In addition, she is the editor-in-chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, and has provided consultation to the Ford Foundation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and World Bank.
