Speaker profiles for the 2025 Annual Conference
Professor Jenny Roe - Keynote Speaker
Dr. Jenny Roe is Emeritus Professor of Design and Health at the University of Virginia, Visiting Professor at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Professor at The Research Centre for Urban Studies (RCUS), Heriot Watt University, UK.
An environmental psychologist and former head of Landscape Architecture for an international architectural practice, she writes, lectures, and consults for a wide range of academic and public audiences on human health-centred design for the built environment. She is an expert in restorative environments that support mental health including an important role for public parks and urban green space. Her book on this subject, Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing (Roe and McCay, 2021) explores a new way of designing cities that puts mental health at the forefront. A companion book under development will set out an evidence-based approach to direct architecture for mental health, Restorative Architecture, the Science of Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing” (Bloomsbury, 2027).
Roe has won numerous awards and research grants exploring a rich variety of architectural and landscape contexts and their psychological impact on people. Her scholarly outputs include over sixty peer review publications including for the World Health Organization and the Lancet. She sits on the board of directors for The Center for Advanced Design Research & Evaluation (CADRE), is an advisor for the Design Council (UK) on health-related design, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Alex MacLaren
Alex is an RIBA/RIAS Chartered Architect and fellow of the RSA and the HEA. She is Director of Learning & Teaching for the multidisciplinary school of EGIS, at Heriot Watt University.
Research interests are in built-environment cross-disciplinary collaboration, and training the future industry to meet the Climate Emergency. Alex pioneers programmes for higher education syllabi across the UK, working between construction subjects and with professionals outside of the university. She believes that smart education and training for students, honing trans-disciplinary communication and social skills, is essential to effectively implement the technical evolution of the construction industry, and inspire future generations.
Alex is currently running a project with Bentley Software and Midlothian Council to leverage cutting-edge software to bring pupils into Built Environment careers, and prepare a digital-first future workforce. This includes a proposal for Planning Engagement using 3D terrain software and AI-assisted interactive visualisations.
Aline Kirkland
Aline holds a BSc in Urban and Regional Planning and an MSc in Geographic Information Science. She began her career as an urban planner, first in local government and later transitioning to consultancy. From there, she shifted her focus to information management in humanitarian emergencies, spending two years in Iraq and Jordan conducting large-scale data collection projects to assess the needs of refugees and internally displaced people.
Following this, Aline joined the United Nations Migration Agency, where she contributed to the refugee response in Bangladesh. Her work centred on monitoring needs and mapping services and facilities in the Rohingya refugee camps. After two years in Bangladesh, she transitioned to the UN's Afghanistan response, serving as a spatial planner on a project that engaged communities to define their needs in areas with high numbers of displaced people.
Her final role in humanitarian response was with the World Food Programme HQ, where she worked on developing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for humanitarian efforts. In this capacity, she supported the response in Sri Lanka and Palestine. Aline now works for the Improvement Service as the Digital Planning Data Project Manager, overseeing all aspects of planning data.
Craig McLaren
Craig McLaren is Scotland's first National Planning Improvement Champion. This role was established in the 2019 Planning Act to monitor planning performance and support improvement; to identify, share and apply good practice; and to establish strategic challenges and broker action. Craig is based in the Improvement Service and took up post in September 2023.
Prior to that he was Director of Scotland, Ireland and English Regions in the Royal Town Planning Institute; Director of the Scottish Centre for Regeneration in Communities Scotland/ Scottish Government; Chief Executive of SURF (Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum); Scottish Policy Officer at RTPI; and a planner in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames.
Craig writes a regular column for The Planner magazine’s website called Planning Positive and is a Fellow of the RTPI, the RSA and the Academy of Social Sciences, and an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism. He has sat on the Boards of Scotland's Towns Partnership, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Greenspace Scotland, Resilient Scotland and the Jim Boyack Memorial Trust.
Elaine Campbell
Elaine works for the City of Edinburgh Council and leads the Development Management Section. A member of the RTPI she has a range of experience from Scottish Planning Authorities. In her career she has always had an interest in supporting the growth of young planners and encouraging colleagues to develop their careers. She has recently been involved in work on Edinburgh as a Feminist City. Away from the office she has 2 children, is a member of Girlguiding and enjoys sewing.
F. Pelin Ekdi
F. Pelin Ekdi is an urban planner and urban designer with extensive academic and professional expertise in sustainable urbanism. She holds a BSc in Urban Planning, an MSc in Urban Design, and a PhD in Urban Planning, as well as an Urban Design Certificate from the University of Strathclyde. From 2006 to 2014, she worked as a research assistant at Istanbul Technical University and conducted her PhD research at the University of Cincinnati, exploring cultural and creative industries, placemaking theory, public space, and publicness.
She later completed a 30-month Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project with the University of Strathclyde and ABC on Zero Carbon Neighbourhoods, which concluded in December 2024. Currently, she is an employee-owner and carbon balance consultant at ABC, specializing in community carbon, sustainable urban design, street network analysis, the ecosystem benefits of trees, carbon sequestration, and place-based net-zero solutions. She is also a certified Building with Nature Assessor.
Husam Al Waer
Husam is an 'urbanist', with a background in architecture, urban planning and sustainability. He is currently Chair of Urban Design at the University of Dundee, having previously researched and taught at Reading and Liverpool universities. He has worked with various UK and International governmental and corporate agencies on research, training and engagement projects. Husam’s work has had a demonstrable impact in both academia and practice. He has a focussed interest in the past and future of sustainable places, towns and cities (including the 20 minute Neighbourhoods), and in particular the development of new approaches to sustainable urbanism and the way new methodologies are facilitated and managed. Husam is an award-winning author with published work on a wide range of subjects from architecture, urbanism, sustainability, and healthy neighbourhoods to the specifics of placemaking facilitation and performance evaluation. He brings insight to research, teaching, community stakeholder engagement and professional practice at the intersection between theoretical and contemporary policy and practice.
Husam is a member of the Urban Design Group Executive Committee, Honorary visiting professor at Damascus University, and Honorary Chief Editor of the Urban Design and Planning journal. He was invited as an Official Observer and Presenter at COP26 in Glasgow, and more recently invited to speak at the World Urban Forum in Cairo in 2024. He was twice acted as a Special Advisor to Scottish Government charrette events and the New Ideas Funded Programme.
Irene Beautyman
A strong advocate for impact the places where we live, work and play have on wellbeing, Irene works at the Improvement Service on the shared ambition for public health and local government to collaborate around Place.
Irene guided the establishment of a consistent and comprehensive set of features that, if we get right in a place, enable those using them to thrive. These are called Scotland’s Place and Wellbeing Outcomes. She led the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme, jointly delivered by Public Health Scotland and the Improvement Service. It delivered its ambition to support the wellbeing of people and planet while reducing inequality by focussing on embedding the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes and data into more collaborative decision making processes. With funding from the Health Foundation and Scottish Government the Programme worked across 7 areas of Scotland in partnership with local councils and health boards. Irene now shares its learnings and resources to expand the support offer to any area of Scotland looking to take a place based approach.
Irene spent 30 years of her career as a Town Planner, working in Local Government and building knowledge and expertise in shaping policy at a local and strategic level.
Irene was the 2020 Convenor of the Royal Town Planning Institute in Scotland, became a Fellow in 2024 and is a 2025 RTPI Woman of Influnce. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at Heriot Watt University.
John Cooney
John Cooney is a Corporate Member of the RTPI Scottish Executive Committee, sits on the Scottish Young Planners' Network Steering Group, and is Planning Officer at Perth & Kinross Council
Jonathan McQuillan
Jonathan McQuillan is an award-winning Architect and Director at the employee-owned practice, Anderson Bell Christie. He has significant experience with new build and retrofit public sector projects, and has delivered masterplans, social housing, healthcare and education facilities.
He is a RIAS Sustainable Designer, Passivhaus Designer and PAS2035 Co-ordinator. His research portfolio, developed over the past 20 years, spans indoor air quality, operational net zero and now net zero placemaking. His work has influenced Scottish building standards and helped to shape design guidance across Scotland.
This White Paper launch marks the conclusion of a series of successful national funding applications to organisations such as Scottish Enterprise and Innovate UK.
Kevin Murray
Kevin is a Fellow and Past President of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), Founding Director and Past Chair of the international Academy of Urbanism, and Honorary Professor of Planning at Dundee and Glasgow Universities. Kevin has specialisms in strategy, regeneration and the facilitation of stakeholder and community engagement
Working with professionals, politicians, communities, specialist agencies and developers, Kevin regularly facilitates strategy and design engagement events, including the development of visions, masterplan and action plans. He uses techniques such as visioning, scenario planning, back-casting and action planning to build consensus around plans and programmes.
His experience has included facilitation of national scale projects such as the National Planning Framework for Scotland (both NPF3 & NPF4), the Freiburg Charter of Sustainable Urbanism and the Galway 2070 Charter.
Kevin has led a range of planning and development research projects for the Scottish Government, HES, RTPI and the Scottish Land Commission – including into the re-use of Vacant and Derelict Land (for SLC) and the Measurement of Planning Outcomes (for the RTPI).
Kevin has led KMA since 2002, having worked in local government and consultancy before then. He has served on RTPI Scotland SEC several times, RTPI London and RTPI Council, Board and GA.
Laura Robertson
Laura Robertson is RTPI Scotland Convenor for 2025 and Senior Planner at Aberdeen City Council.
Margaret Douglas
Dr Margaret Douglas is a Consultant in Public Health, Public Health Scotland and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow. Her work uses a Health in All Policies approach to understand and influence the health and inequalities impacts of policy areas including planning, transport and economy.
Maura McCormack
Maura McCormack is RTPI Scotland Senior Vice Convenor 2025 and Associate Director at Iceni Projects
Meadhbh Maguire
Meadhbh Maguire is a Principal Planner with the Highland Council’s Development Plans team, and is also a planning researcher, gaining her Planning PhD from McGill University in 2021. One of her key interests is the role of public health within planning, particularly in relation to retail environments.
She recently received the RTPI Early Career Research Grant for her work exploring the drivers and barriers of planning in food environments in the North East of England, and separately worked with Nesta and Public Health Scotland as a Planning Expert In Residence to identify planning and food environment levers since the adoption of NPF4 in Scotland.
Rim Chouaib
Rim Chouaib is a senior chartered planner at Kevin Murray Associates with a specialism in creative engagement and facilitation. With extensive experience in designing and leading collaborative processes, she helps communities, stakeholders, and local authorities envision and plan for future change. She has delivered engagement at national, regional, and local levels, including National Planning Framework 4, Indicative Regional Spatial Strategies, and the Fraserburgh Beach Masterplan.
Rim combines her planning expertise with strong design and visualisation skills, producing graphics, future-mapping, and photomontages that translate community aspirations into clear and accessible visions. She has worked on the Vision and Plans for Glasgow Golden Z, Brighter Barrhead Masterplan, Manchester Central 6 Stations, Inverness Victorian Market among many others.
Currently, she is the treasurer of the RTPI West of Scotland Chapter and an active member of the RTPI Scottish Young Planners Network. Rim has also won the RTPI Scottish Young Planner of the Year 2025.
Rowena Statt
Rowena is Anderson Bell Christie’s R&D Director and an architect and urban designer. A central theme of her work is the creation of healthy places that promote wellbeing, with a strong emphasis on accessibility for both buildings and neighbourhoods. Notable projects include a Lifetime Intergenerational Neighbourhood for the Gannochy Trust, which has received multiple awards, including the Civic Trust’s Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design, recognising its universally accessible homes and outdoor sociable spaces.
Her work has also been acknowledged by the RTPI, with a Sustainable Communities Award for her work on the Isle of Gigha, where she developed housing models that support a wide range of activities and age groups, alongside an improved island-wide active travel network. Rowena is a member of the Accessible Housing Network, advocating for better design and provision of accessible homes. She currently serves on the board of Horizon Housing Association, which specialises in housing for older people and people with disabilities.
Her philosophy is that “place” is as important as “home” in building healthy communities. This principle has guided her work on Memory Friendly Neighbourhoods with Edinburgh and Stirling Universities, and her contributions to the Mobility, Mood and Place project with Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, York, and King’s College Universities. She champions collaboration in design and has promoted a ‘hands- on’ role for planners through her involvement in the Scottish Government’s Drawing Places initiative.
Susan Rintoul
Susan Rintoul is the Improvement Lead in the National Planning Improvement team. She leads on the implementation of a new performance framework to monitor planning performance; identify, share and apply good practice; and identify strategic challenges facing planning authorities.
Susan has worked at the Improvement Service for the last 6 years, across a number of roles including secretariat to HOPS, Project Lead in the Shaping Places for Wellbeing programme and working on the Planning for Place programme. She has a MSc in Spatial Planning with Sustainable Urban Design.
Willie Watt
Willie Watt aka The Architects Sketchbook is a conservation architect and director at Nicoll Russell Studios and a Past President of the RIAS. He will lead a walk, talk and draw workshop at the Conference. Participants will encouraged to draw, observe and consider townscape, placemaking, heritage, change and appropriateness.