Tara directs ITDP’s Special Initiatives, which include mobility pricing, electrification, and new mobility, among others. Prior to joining the team, she worked in support of public life and public space, advocating for people-friendly cities at the Gehl Institute. Tara has worked in a broad range of urban sectors, geared toward planning and designing a better experience for city-dwellers in terms of equitable access to space, healthy buildings, resilient infrastructure, and social connectivity. Tara completed her Master and Bachelor degrees at New York University, in Environmental Conservation Education, and Studio Art, respectively. She is passionate about people-powered transportation, eating low on the food chain, curbing our culture’s addiction to single-use items, and clean, simple designs.

Bryson Rose is a trainer and activist currently serving as the Director of the Center for LGBTQ Youth Advocacy and Capacity Building at the Hetrick-Martin Institute. Bryson has spent the past 5 years in the role collaborating with government agencies, educational institutions, and NGOs to build capacity around supporting the needs of LGBTQ-identified youth. Additionally, Bryson spearheads HMI’s advocacy efforts, lobbying for systems-level change at both the local and state level to ensure equity and dignity for LGBTQ youth, communities, and their families. He also serves on the New York State Health and Human Services LGBT Network working to increase access to affirming and culturally responsive mental health services. Prior to his time within the HMI Center, Bryson was the Program Manager for Adolescent Sexual Health & Reproductive Justice in the Youth Services Division of HMI’s youth programs. Bryson’s area of focus include addressing health disparities through the lenses of trauma informed care, anti-oppressive frameworks, historical trauma work, community centered solution creation and writing as healing. Bryson’s writing has been featured on the FreshXpress as well as The Huffington Post and he appeared on NY’s Fox 5 as a sexual health expert for World AIDS Day 2017. In 2017, Bryson was the recipient of the inaugural Notable Alumni Award from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University, his alma mater.

Laura Huerta Migus is the Executive Director of the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) in Arlington, Virginia, the world’s largest professional society promoting and advocating on behalf of children’s museums and children’s museum professionals. Throughout her career, Laura has been devoted to the growth and education of children, particularly those from underserved and under-resourced communities.

Under her leadership, ACM pursues innovative and effective partnerships to leverage the power of children’s museums worldwide. In 2018, she was named as an Ascend Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and in 2016 she was recognized as a Champion of Change for Summer Opportunity by the White House. Previously, Laura served as the Director of Professional Development and Equity Initiatives at the Association of Science-Technology Centers, Inc. and also held positions at the National Multicultural Institute and the National Association for Bilingual Education.

Anna works on the Streets for Kids program, creating a supplement to the Global Street Design Guide. She is an urban planner by day, mother by night, and a tireless public space observer in between. Prior to joining NACTO, Anna worked at Project for Public Spaces in New York, where she contributed to Southwest Airlines Heart of the Community Program to improve underutilized public spaces throughout the United States.

Anna has been a presenter and trainer at numerous national and international conferences, seminars and workshops, most recently in Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Russia, and South Korea. She spent two years in Norman, Oklahoma as a Fulbright scholar conducting research on minority communities and assisting the Institute for Quality Communities, a non-profit dedicated to helping people reshape their towns and cities in ways that improve social ties, environment, and economy.

Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in Psychology at Temple University and is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Director of Temple University’s Infant Language Laboratory, Kathy is the recipient of the Simms/Mann Whole Child Award, the AERA Outstanding Public Communication for Education Research Award, American Psychological Association’s Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society, the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, the American Psychological Society’s James McKeen Cattell Award for “a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research,” the Society for Research in Child Development Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award, and the Temple University Great Teacher Award and University Eberman Research Award. She was a finalist for 2013 Best Professor of the year for the American Academy of Education Arts and Sciences Bammy Awards. Kathy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research in the areas of early education, language, playful learning and spatial development has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Human Development, and the Institute of Education Sciences resulting in 13 books and over 200 publications. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, elected a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society for “individuals whose research has exhibited sustained excellence and had sustained impact on the Cognitive Science community” and was elected a fellow of AERA. She was an Associate Editor of Child Development, and is the Past President and past treasurer of the International Association for Infant Studies. Her book, Einstein Never used Flashcards won the prestigious Books for Better Life Award as the best psychology book in 2003. Her newest book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science tells us about raising successful children (2016) was on the NYTimes Best Seller List in both education and parenting. Kathy has a strong interest in bridging the gap between research and application. To that end, she was an investigator on the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, is on the Advisory Board of the Children’s Museums in San Francisco and Boston, and Jumpstart, Disney Junior and Noggin (Nickelodeon). She worked on the language and literacy team for the development of the California Preschool Curriculum, is on the Core Team for the LEGO Research Network, a member of the Steering Committee of the Latin American School for Educational and Cognitive Neuroscience and is on the advisory board for the National Center on Early Child Development, that advises Head Start. She was also a founder of the prestigious Learning Sciences Exchange Fellowship, an interdisciplinary program for mid-career scholars. founder and organizer of the Ultimate Block Party (ultimateblockparty.com) and a founder of Playful Learning Landscapes (playfullearninglandscapes.com). Kathy has been a spokesperson on early childhood development for national media like the NYTimes and NPR. She tweets at KathyandRo1.