Sustainable Lighting: From Theory to Impact

Scott Roos is the Vice President, Sustainability and Business Optimization, Specialty Lighting Group at Acuity Brands. 2024 marks Scott's 46th year in lighting, a career that has encompassed product design, marketing, product management, strategic planning and lighting education. Products Scott has worked on have earned numerous patents and awards including the Industrial Design Excellence Award and LightFair's Most Innovative Product and Technical Innovation awards. He has also developed the concepts and lighting design for numerous facilities, showrooms and tradeshow booths including the acclaimed Des Plaines, IL Center for Light and Space.

Scott has always been involved in pushing the envelope for critical topics of the time, from developing the first miniature low voltage accent lighting fixtures and systems in the 80’s to helping advance CFL general illumination downlighting in the 90s to driving the development of the first commercially viable LED track and recessed solutions in the early 2000s. Most recently Scott has been a grain of sand in the oyster to encourage us to embrace wellness and sustainability as fundamental elements of good lighting and has been a regular speaker on both topics at national and regional industry events.

He is currently serving as a member of the IES Sustainability Committee, which is updating the LP10 Sustainable Lighting Practice document, the NEMA Lighting Sustainability Task Force, the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) addressing the Environmental Aspects of Lighting and with Smart EPD to develop Product Category Rules for conducting luminaire Life Cycle Assessments in North America.

Scott has a BFA in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois and an MBA from De Paul University.

Kate Hickcox is a creative thinker with over 20 years of experience in lighting, research and design. Kate’s work focuses on sustainability, which means considering the complex aesthetic, technical, visual, and non-visual needs of people while at the same time equitably benefiting the economy, society, and the environment. Kate’s unique background blends the artistic with the practical and allows for the discovery of unique design solutions and innovative research-based strategies. Her work at PNNL includes supporting Energy Equity and Justice in Systems Technology work, leading decarbonization and circularity efforts for lighting and other mechanical and electrical systems, and work in outdoor nighttime lighting.

She has authored or co-authored many technical publications/reports and has presented at LightFair International, IALD, LEDucation, the CIE and the IES on topics including sustainability, life cycle assessment, subjective rating scales, designing for darkness, glare and brightness perception, lighting, and acoustics as well as lighting quality metrics.

Kate has been a guest critic and speaker at Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons/The New School, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Architecture Department. She has taught at The New School, Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and was also the Lighting Fellow for ‘Opening the Edge’, a project of the Design Trust for Public Space, in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority; proposed by Jane Greengold.

She is currently a member of the IES Standards Committee, member of the ASHRAE Building Decarbonization Whole Life Design Guide working group, voting member of the IES Technical Committee: Discomfort Glare in Outdoor Nighttime Environments and of the IES Sustainability Committee.

Leela Shanker leads the Design Lab with WAP Sustainability. Synthesizing architectural design, sustainability analytical frameworks and speculative material investigations, the Lab implements strategies that progress decarbonization, circularity and material health in the built environment. Based in New York, with collaborators globally, Shanker and WAP's team develop pilot initiatives between leading stakeholders from design, manufacturing and real estate.

Through the GreenLight Alliance - an international network of lighting professionals progressing industry-led standards, research and advocacy - she founded the Lighting Industry Life Cycle Assessment Incubator while practicing as a lighting designer with consulting engineering firm BR+A. She holds a M.Arch (Hons) and MFA - Lighting Design from Parsons School of Design and Bachelors of Law and Commerce from Sydney University.

Shanker continues to advise the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy) as technical expert to their Life Cycle Assessment and light research team and is a Steering Committee member of the American Institute of Architects’ Decarbonization Subcommittee and Carbon Leadership Forum NY chapters.

As Founder of non-profit, Flint Collective NYC Inc, her work has been awarded by the IES with a Special Citation for Lighting as a Tool for Social Impact. She is a current member of the Social Architecture track of the New Museum’s NEW INC incubator.

Alexandra Christiana WELL AP, LEED AP BD+C, LFA, is an architect and sustainability leader at HMFH Architects, where her passion for building performance and knowledge of lighting design has made her crucial to projects at every stage. Providing integral support to project teams, Christiana uses her skillsets to push sustainable initiatives and assist in problem solving for complex designs. Her commitment to promoting student wellness is reflected in her daylight and energy modeling, as well as her research into healthy material options and embodied carbon. With a background in energy consumption and voluntary building standards, Christiana holds a Master of Science in Environmental Design of Buildings from Cardiff University in Wales and a Master of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design.