Interim Executive Director
Ben Werner is an urban planner and affordable housing developer living in Brooklyn.
Ben graduated from the Pratt Institute's urban planning program in 2024. Prior to coming to New York, Ben created and directed the Housing Justice Program at the East Side Freedom Library, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In addition to his work with Resilient Red Hook, he is the president of the Greene Hill Food Co-op.
Outside of work, Ben is part of the music duo River Road Drive, and also loves to cook, ride his bike and spend time with his daughter and wife.
Board Member
Beth Bingham is an urban planner whose research focuses on environmental justice, sustainability and community-based initiatives. Since 2011 she has been on faculty at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, teaching across disciplines in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. She also teaches Economics at SUNY’s Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies. Her teaching and professional practice highlight how historical development has shaped current cities and she uses research to support community-led initiatives that meet local challenges.
She is currently a Presidential Research Fellow at the City University of New York, where she is a PhD candidate in Earth and Environmental Sciences. Her research at the CUNY Graduate Center focuses on community practices of democracy and environmental stewardship in large-scale urban environmental remediation projects, where reparative planning is centered.
Before pursuing her doctorate, Beth’s public scholarship served open space and historic preservation advocacy organizations helping to shape policy around urban planning and the preservation of places and spaces in NYC. As the Director of Research & Planning at New Yorkers for Parks that included the annual Report Cards on Parks, the Open Space Index and Council District Profiles for every neighborhood in the city. While pursuing her masters degree she worked on preserving Brooklyn’s waterfront industrial heritage at the Municipal Arts Society, and she was a Policy Fellow at the Pratt Center for Community Development. Earlier Beth spent a decade working in New Orleans, where the catastrophic flooding of the city after Hurricane Katrina exposed the extreme vulnerabilities wrought by the intersection of historic development, environmental injustice, racial capitalism and climate change, and set her on this path. There she worked as an archeologist and architectural historian, using research to develop site and neighborhood-level preservation plans for State and local agencies.
Realty Collective
Interim Chair
Victoria Alexander founded Realty Collective in Brooklyn, an area rich in history and architecture, after growing disenchanted with other brokerage models. She chose to model one after her own ideals and interest in shaping Brooklyn’s future, while staying connected to its cultural heritage. Victoria is involved with various planning and historic preservation issues in Brooklyn. Her work in real estate has exposed her to the individuals and institutions governing public life in New York City. Her passion for communities and the architecture of Brooklyn have led to her earning a masters degree in Historic Preservation Planning from Pratt while managing her real estate brokerage – no mean feat.
Board Member
As a conceptual artist and writer, Professor Gilman-Ševc?ík has created and curated exhibitions and served as artist-in-residence extensively at museums and galleries throughout the US and abroad including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Prague Biennial, and many others. He was the founding Artistic Director for Gulliver’s Gate, the miniature world museum in Times Square. His writing and art criticism has appeared in mass media outlets including the Village Voice, the Guardian, Art in America, and Flash Art, among others. Cover, a monograph on his collaborative art practice with Františka Gilman was published by Triga in 2009, and his book The Academy of Forgetting was published by Atropos Press in 2016.
He serves as Executive Director of the Resilience, Education, Training and Innovation (RETI) Center, a nonprofit focused on urban resilience in the face of climate change. His work as a copywriter and Creative Director for advertising clients such as the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the National Education Association, Transamerica, and many more has won numerous industry awards. He was a co-founder of the Peabody-winning Studio 360 for WNYC and the interdisciplinary academic journal continent.
Former Chair and Founder
Ms. Nandan is an architect, designer, educator, and leader in community resilience planning and design. She is a co-founder and principal of the award winning design firm thread collective, former co-chair/founder of Resilient Red Hook, founder/current board chair of RETI Center, and adjuct associate professor at Pratt Institute GCPE and the School for Visual Arts. In addition, Ms.Nandan recently founded the ADS Warehouse in Newburgh NY in the Hudson Valley as an art and cultural center, with the aim of being a model net-zero facility. Ms. Nandan believes in resilience and sustainable design as an elastic and supple approach, integrating social, cultural, and economic issues with high design principles to create innovative net-positive urban environments. Working in the field for over 20 years, Ms. Nandan has overseen design and construction on a wide range of project-types that span across many disciplines and scales, such as Concrete Waves, a skateboard storm water capture system for youth in the Lower East Side, to a net-zero campus facility for a social justice organization. Her work is at the nexus of where design meets the ecology of place, and future proofing communities, driven by finding creative solutions to complex problems; weaving social justice with the built-environment. In addition to her current work, Ms. Nandan has lectured across the country, and been involved in sustainable design policy and code creation. She currently serves on a variety of committees focused on climate policy at the city, and state level, including the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act LandUse Committee. Ms. Nandan received her M. Arch from UC Berkeley and is a licensed practitioner in New York, and New Jersey
Exec Director, Kentler Gallery
Economic Diversity, Water sub-committee
Florence moved to Red Hook in 1987 and renovated a neglected 1877 building as part of New York City’s Artist Housing Program. She soon founded Kentler International Drawing Space, a non-profit organization that promotes and exhibits contemporary drawing and works on paper by local, national and international artists. Kentler also maintains a popular K.I.D.S. Arts Education program as well as hosts a Red Hook image archive that preserves the history of this waterfront community. Florence previously served for three years as Exhibitions Coordinator at Brooklyn Public Library. As a board member of Groups Against Garbage Sites (G.A.G.S.) and member of the Red Hook Civic Association, she has experience working on issues concerning the residents and businesses of Red Hook.
Emeritus Member
Musician + Off The Hook blogger
Adam Armstrong is a Red Hook resident, dad, musician and sometimes finds time to write the local blog, “A View From The Hook“. After immigrating from Australia with his young family in 2000, falling in love with and buying into Red Hook in 2001, Adam quickly became involved in local issues, including port pollution, waterfront development, quality of life and issues of environmental justice. His activism – through his blog and elsewhere – has helped to bring the first shore-power berth for ocean going ships on the U.S. East Coast to Red Hook. Cruise ships that visit the Brooklyn Cruise terminal at the edge of Red Hook’s residential streets will soon be “plugging in” to the city’s electric grid instead of idling their extra-dirty diesel engines while in port, thereby removing tons of carcinogenic and asthma causing fumes from Red Hook’s air and out of its vulnerable residents’ lungs. In 2012, because of this work, Adam was named one of Friends of the Earth’s “Faces of Change”.
South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp.
Economic Diversity sub-committee
Jesse represents South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp on the committee, a local economic development organization working to help Red Hook and South Brooklyn industrial and business sectors thrive. Jesse is the Economic Development Specialist, providing assistance to the business services programs and SBIDC’s commercial revitalization project in Red Hook. With a background in community organizing and advocacy, Jesse is passionate about community driven economic development, particularly in the urban context. She now lives in Sunset Park and likes working directly with the businesses in the community. Jesse recently graduated from Coro’s 2016 Neighborhood Leadership program.
Marine Spares International
Water, Energy + Transportation sub-committees
Jim is an active local business owner, working in Red Hook for over two decades. Founder of Marine Spares International, an industrial supply company, Jim brings a deep knowledge regarding the maritime industry, local business needs, and a passion for creating resilience in the local economic sector.
Emeritus Member
Resident
Andrea Sansom is a local resident who advocates for affordable and viable National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reform. After Super Storm Sandy, it became clear that there are manifold problems and opportunities for improvement within the NFIP including affordability concerns, mitigation incentives, fair payouts post disaster, increasing policy participation, among other policy and claims considerations. Over the past several years, Andrea has worked with local residents, FEMA, local and national advocacy organizations, and City, State and Federal elected officials toward making this program sustainable for our community.
Emeritus Member
Resident
Stephen has been advocating for flood protection solutions for Red Hook since Superstorm Sandy. He later helped guide the NYS Community Reconstruction Program (CRP) Committee toward including community-wide flood protection as part of its mission. He’s also an active participant in the Gowanus Canal Superfund Community Advisory Group (CAG). In addition to local community efforts, he and his wife, Andrea, have advocated at state and federal levels for creative mitigation solutions for buildings in flood zones with a specific focus on building mitigation as it relates to flood insurance reform. He is a contractor and has completed a resilient retrofit of his 1860’s home in Red Hook where he has lived and run a business for 17 years.
Emeritus Member
Resident / Environmental Justice Activist
Karen Dawn Blondel moved to Red Hook Brooklyn in 1982 and became involved with campaigns against waste transfer stations and environmental issues of the times. In 1993 Karen became a first year member of The Red Hook Public Safety Corp (Americorp, Vista) and created resident engagement at local venues like the Red Hook Library and the Justice Center. Karen is a graduate of N.E.W. Non-Traditional Employment for Women and The Joint Urban Manpower Program where she became a CADD Drafter and Designer/Engineer Assistant on infrastructure projects including the rehabilitation of the RFK Bridge in NYC and MTA’s flood mitigation and resiliency upgrades in response to Hurricane Sandy.
Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia GSAPP
Water sub-committee head and Land-Use sub-committee
Thaddeus Pawlowski is a Red Hook resident and urban planner and designer who has been working at the forefront of adapting cities to climate change. Working in New York City government since the early 2000s, he has sought to integrate adaptation and resilience into the long term development patterns of the city through the design of projects, policies and programs. After Hurricane Sandy, he worked with the NYC Mayor's Office, setting up disaster recovery programs including the Sandy Design Helpdesk and Resilient Neighborhood studies. He teaches urban design and resilience at Columbia University GSAPP. He has a Masters in Architecture from University of Pennsylvania and was a 2015 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.
AE Superlab
Energy + Transportation sub-committee
Ahmed ElHusseiny is the founder and principal of AE Superlab, a collaborative design firm operating at the intersection of art, architecture, engineering and technology. He works and lives in Red Hook Brooklyn. Prior to founding AE Superlab, Ahmed was a Senior Designer and Senior Associate Principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, where he was responsible for the design and development of a broad range of mixed use, commercial, retail, and residential projects throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Key projects include Parc Du Millenaire Buildings 3 and 4 in Paris, Qiantan Center in Shanghai, Forum 66 Hang Lung Plaza in Shenyang, the H Residences in Cairo, as well as unbuilt proposals for the supertall Tower 111 in Dubai and LG headquarters in New Jersey. Ahmed received his Masters Degree in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where his studies focused on the interplay of architecture, technology, and narrative storytelling.
GANS Studio
Secretary and Land-Use sub-committee
Founder of GANS Studio, located in Red Hook, Ms. Gans has had an extension career in architecture and planning, advocating for resilience throughout her work. Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and recipient of their 2014 New York State Educator Award; publications include the Le Corbusier Guide, which has been translated into four languages, as well as many essays on Le Corbusier and writings on urbanism and ecology such as Extreme Sites: Greening the Brownfield and The Organic Approach, which she edited with fellow faculty member Zehra Kuz; architectural practice, Gans studio, is a Design Excellence Firm of the City of New York, with work that has been exhibited at the Guggenheim and the Venice Biennale; has served as undergraduate department chair.
Intern
Webmaster
Samm is a seasoned senior at Rutgers University, completing a B.S. degree with a major in Environmental Sociology and a minor in Sustainability. Her calling to environmental service work stems from a radical awakening during previous studies in Nutritional and Exercise Science, where diving deep into modern food systems inspired a necessary pivot in a new direction. She has completed coursework in science communication, risk management, environmental history of the tri-state metropolitan area, geology, environmental politics, and most importantly intersectional environmental justice. She is experienced in project management, entrepreneurship, and animal care. She aims to use the full gambit of her varied experiences to empower communities and individuals alike to be informed and in control of their right to a happy, healthy planet. Her primary goal is to establish an educational, symbiotic, and self-sustaining organic farm and animal rescue. During her free time, Samm embodies the oxymoronic identity of an adrenaline-chasing introvert via motorcycle riding, mountain biking, rock climbing, board sports, paddle sports, sustainable farming, cooking, camping, gaming, reading, and knitting.