Marilyn Taylor became Dean of the School of Design and Paley Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 after spending more than thirty years as partner, architect and urban designer at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP. At SOM she led the firm’s practices in airports, transportation, and urban design, also serving as its first woman Chairman. She is internationally known for her distinguished and passionate involvement in the design of large-scale urban districts, transportation projects, and civic initiatives. She has been elected as a Rockefeller Fellow of the Partnership for New York City, President of the American Institute of Architects NYC Chapter, Chairman of the AIA City and Regional Planning Committee, Chairman of the New York Building Congress, and President of the Forum for Urban Design, as well as a member of visiting committees of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Architecture program at MIT. She is a board member of the Regional Planning Association, the Urban Design Forum, Places, and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, and served as a Housing Commissioner of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC. She also serves as a Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, where she was the first architect and first woman to serve as Global Chairman. She continues to champion a renewed focus on cities, resilient communities, and infrastructure investment. As a leader in research-based design education, PennDesign provides master and PhD degrees to outstanding students in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, historic preservation, and the fine arts. Dean Taylor leads seminars and studios that advance transportation and infrastructure as catalysts of quality of life and economic vitality for cities and regions around the world.

Danielle DiLeo Kim, AIA is an architect and urban designer whose broad career has included the realization of institutional and cultural buildings, citywide and campus master plans, and engagement processes for community and high-level stakeholders in and around the Philadelphia region for over twenty years. Danielle manage the creation of the city’s first comprehensive plan since 1960, Philadelphia2035, and also PIDC’s long-range development plan for the Lower Schuylkill. Danielle’s architectural career began at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and later included WRT and MGA Partners where she played a leading role in Temple University’s 20/20 Master Plan, pavilions and campus master plan for the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, the Salvation Army Kroc Center, and the Fairmount Park Centennial District Master Plan. Currently, Danielle serves as the Executive Director of USA250 in which she is coordinating a national campus plan for the greater Philadelphia region for the 250th anniversary of the country in 2026. Danielle is actively engaged in the community and currently serves the on the boards of Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia and AIA Philadelphia, and also is a committee chair for the Women’s Leadership Initiative of ULI Philadelphia. Danielle holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech. Danielle was awarded the Young Architect Award by AIA Philadelphia in 2012. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Fairmount where you’ll find her running or riding her bike.