2025 Continuing Education

Continuing Education courses will be offered in person and via Zoom in a one-day format. The event will begin at 8 a.m. CT, break for lunch and conclude by 5 p.m. Speakers will discuss a number of topics, including artificial intelligence and practice, techniques for urban analysis and case studies of design excellence in practice.

David Shanks, RA

David Shanks, RA, NCARB is an Assistant Professor in the Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture. He is co-founder of the architectural practice ASDF, which was named Best of Practice by The Architect’s Newspaper in 2021 and received a Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects New York State Chapter in 2023. Shanks has exhibited his design work in multiple venues. From 2018 to 2020, Shanks was the Architecture Program Director on Syracuse University’s study abroad campus in Florence, Italy.

Michael Shows, AIA Principal and Nic Henniger, AIA Principal

Michael Shows, AIA and Nic Henniger, AIA serve as Principals at Chambless King Architects, where their leadership continues to shape the firm’s legacy of thoughtful, community-centered design. With a shared commitment to excellence, visualization, and care, Michael and Nic have guided projects that consistently earn recognition across Alabama’s architectural landscape. Their recent accolades reflect a dedication to impactful design. In 2025, their work secured them a spot on “A South Forty”, a list of the top Architecture Firms in the Southeastern United States. The previous year saw multiple honors, including AIA Alabama and AIA Birmingham Honor Awards for The Mill at Prattville and Priceville Event Center.

Julieta Collart, Avanade

Based on her interactions, Copilot describes her as: A strategic powerhouse with a knack for turning vision into reality. Julieta leads projects with precision, anticipating challenges and crafting innovative solutions. Her collaborative spirit and problem-solving prowess drive impactful results, making every team she works with stronger and more successful. Julieta is passionate about leveraging strategic insights and teamwork to push boundaries and achieve excellence. Julieta is an entrepreneur, human-centered business designer, systems thinker and futurist. Obsessed with uncovering ‘why’ people behave a certain way to leverage insights and design long view business strategies, products and services that overlap profit and purpose. She has a deep interest in emerging technology and how to best use it to solve some our world’s most complex challenges.

Fouad Khalil, Founder Modly

Fouad has over twenty years of experience as a designer, manager and technologist in the U.S. and overseas. Prior to forming Modly, he served as BLOX director of design where he was responsible for new product development and oversaw the management of the multidisciplinary design studio. He also served as team lead and main facilitator for a wide array of manufacturing and technology process improvement projects throughout the enterprise. Prior to his work at Blox, Fouad was a creative director at White Arkitekter, the largest architecture firm in the Nordics and served as lead designer on several significant projects in Sweden. His experience there was also rooted in the use of prefabrication and offsite construction, which has a deep and well-developed basis in the Nordics. Fouad was also a member of the corporate leadership team at White and led several R&D and technology initiatives at the company.

Danielle Willkens, Assoc. AIA, FRSA, LEED AP BD+C

Danielle S. Willkens, Assoc. AIA, FRSA, LEED AP BD+C is a practicing designer, researcher, and FAA Certified Remote Pilot who is particularly interested in bringing architectural engagement to diverse audiences through interactive projects. She was an inaugural Mellon History Teaching Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, exploring the project “From Plantation to Protest: Visualizing Cultural Landscapes of Conflict in the American South.” She currently has several research, documentation, and visualization projects in Selma, AL and Atlanta, GA supported by National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Grants. She was the 2015 recipient of the Society of Architectural Historians’ H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship.

Barbara Benesh, AIA Principal

Barbara Benesh, AIA is a strategic design consultant and the forthcoming author of “Designing the Invisible” a book about the unseen forces that shape our spaces, our systems, and ourselves. With a background in architecture and a heart for human development, she helps visionary leaders translate complexity into clarity aligning physical environments with organizational wellbeing, brand identity, and long-term resilience. Her work lives at the intersection of strategy and spatial planning; Architecture and organizational systems; Emotional infrastructure and leadership. Through B. Grace Design she advises institutions, nonprofits, and growing organizations on how to lead projects from the inside out, beginning with vision, voice, and values.

Ernesto Bilbao, Assistant Professor

Ernesto Bilbao is an Assistant Professor at Auburn University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, where he teaches advanced design studios and History and Theory of Architecture. He holds a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Architecture from Rice University in Houston as a Fulbright Scholar and a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad San Francisco de Quito. He is also the founding principal of Estudio Ernesto Bilbao, based in Quito, Ecuador, which focuses on landscape architecture and architectural design.

Scott Allen, AIA Adjunct Professor

Scott Allen, AIA, is an adjunct faculty member in Auburn University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. He currently teaches thesis research and fifth-year studio. His design work happens primarily in Columbus, Georgia. His projects in education, healthcare and wellness have contributed toward an equitable environment for many tertiary communities. Additionally, he has served on many boards and task force initiatives over the years to contribute beyond the office. His practice has won local and state design awards in across Georgia and Alabama.

Speaker Lineup Archive