Kelley Beaverford

Dr. Kelley Beaverford is an associate professor of interior design in the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Architecture. She is the founder and director of Architects Without Borders Canada (AWB), an organization focused on creating socially empowering environments.  

Her work investigates cross-cultural design, with an emphasis on design for the other 90 per cent. For example, in one five-year project, students have the opportunity to work alongside communities that have been affected by poverty, war or pandemic.

These experiences allow them to learn of complex realities other than their own, while gaining the practical and theoretical knowledge that can lead to more socially responsible design. With the common threads of design-build and collaboration, the course has provided opportunities to explore: Islamic culture and design in a traditional Turkish village, the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS on development in Uganda, and the right to education through the construction of a boarding house for girls in Northern Ghana.

Beaverford holds a bachelor of interior design from the University of Manitoba and a masters of architecture from the University of Calgary.

Susan Close

Dr. Susan Close is an associate professor in the Faculty of Architecture and a senior fellow at St. John’s College, both at the University of Manitoba.

Her book Framing Identity: Social Practice of Photography in Canada (1880-1920) addresses how Canadian women at the turn of the 20th century used photography as a social practice to establish identity.

She used issues related to identity, gender, post-colonialism, tourism and travel as a way to analyze her subject matter. This book is based on her PhD dissertation presented to the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis in 2005.

Close's recent publications include The Camera and the Contact Zone: Re-envisioning the Representation of Aboriginal Women in the Canadian North, Photography and Design Culture: Reading Photographs by Alain Paiement and Richard Holden, and Gender, Space and Photography: Reading the interiors of Clementina Hawarden.

Close is also a photographer, with work held in national and international collections. Her current teaching includes interdisciplinary courses on photography and theory.

Herbert Enns

Prof. Enns is professor of Architecture and director of the Experimental Media Research Group, a new trans-disciplinary digital technology initiative of the University of Manitoba.

He has found that interactive exhibits – such as those that may be incorporataed into the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights – help trigger responses in individuals about ideas they are not even aware they are carrying.

He is the University of Manitoba lead for the Canada/California Strategic Innovation Partnership. In February 2010, Professor Enns debuted four short films: Arrival, Ice-Land, Night Flares and Metropolis for CLUSTER: New Music and Integrated Arts Festival in Winnipeg.

In 2007, Professor Enns was invited to curate the Canadian submission to the Lisbon Architecture Triennial. His installation, Alien Spaces/Strange Places: Canada's Urban Rivers explored the environmental, contextual and perceptual connotations of these "urban voids."

Recent research and creative works include design commissions for projects in the Q'uapelle Valley, Sask.; Crow's Nest Pass, Alta.; Steep Rock, Man.; and Lake-of-the-Woods, Ont.

Richard Milgrom

Dr. Milgrom is an Associate Professor and the Head of the Department of City Planning at the University of Manitoba. He is a long-serving member of the Planner Network Steering Committee and former co-chair, and has been working on public education initiatives with the Manitoba chapter. He is also an active member of the International Network of Urban Research and Action (INURA).

Dr. Milgrom’s research interests include the relationship of urban sustainability and urban form, urban environments for multicultural societies, central city revitalization, redevelopment of public housing, neighbourhood planning and community participation, and social and environmental impacts of mega-events.

Dr. Milgrom’s work investigates the relationship between city planning and human rights through questioning how the design of a city has an impact on the health and well-being of its inhabitants.

Ian Skelton

Dr. Skelton is an architecture professor at the University of Manitoba who is working with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and several First Nations partners to establish a knowledge exchange in First Nations Planning and Development.

Skelton's courses revolve around planning theory and methods and the Indigenous planning studio. His recent research projects include work on urban housing, housing and mental health, and Neoliberalism and urban housing for elderly people of Aboriginal origin.

Dr. Skelton received his master's of urban planning at McGill. He taught there for a year, then moved to England where he studied and participated in community work. Skelton later returned to Canada and earned a PhD at York University, while working as a social policy consultant. Following his first permanent academic appointment at the University of Waterloo, he moved to Winnipeg in 1996. Since his arrival in the coalition capital of Canada, Dr. Skelton has taught at the University of Manitoba and worked on housing and social policy.

He is a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Research and a Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners.