2026 Speakers
Emily McGlohn
Emily McGlohn is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University. McGlohn earned her Master of Architecture degree from the University of Oregon. Her undergraduate Bachelor of Architecture degree is from Auburn University. She is a registered architect in Virginia. Dedicated to supporting architectural practice through design education excellence, McGlohn proudly teaches 3rd-year design studio at Rural Studio in Newbern, Alabama.
Since 2017 she’s served as the 3rd-year curriculum coordinator and job site superintendent. Building and teaching at Rural Studio helps her intimately understand and therefore critique contemporary building enclosures, family house design, and client engagement. Working closely with her teaching team, McGlohn and her students have built three homes for local community members, and one is under construction. Students propose alternative assembly details and test them each academic year. Feedback on cost, construction, materials, and performance helps advance Rural Studio’s Front Porch Initiative goal of developing a family affordable home model for use by other housing development non-profits across the country. This feedback loop of applied research through design-build and back again is central to her research agenda and teaching pedagogy. Pleased to serve her community and profession in West Alabama, McGlohn is a happy resident of Greensboro, Alabama.
Miguel Walker
M. Walker wears many hats at Positive Energy. He is the co-creator/producer of The Building Science Podcast. He is also a co-founder of The Humid Climate Conference, a board member of the Austin chapter of Passive House Alliance U.S., former chair of the AIA Austin Committee On The Environment, a former board member of the Texas Society of Architects Sustainability Task Force, as well as one of the co-founders of The Building Science Philosophical Society.
M. Walker attended Texas State University, where he studied English, Archaeology, Philosophy, and Art. After tenure working in a robotics laboratory, in the tech industry, in the music industry, he eventually found his vocation as a building science consultant and business leader. He has experience helping organizations develop multi-market presences, including building international operations.
Outside of work, he also composes and records his own music and produces music for other artists. The intersection of creative work and advocacy has always been important and has led to the ever important partnership between M. Walker and the ecology-focused organization, Project Coyote, where he serves in their “Artists For Wild Nature” program.
M. Walker have been a guest speaker at the Passive House Northwest Conference, The International Meeting of The American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), The AIA Austin Design Excellence Conference, The ATX Building Performance Conference. He also frequently offers guest lectures for architecture departments at Yale University, The University of Texas, and Texas Tech University, the industrial engineering department at The University of Rhode Island, and the English department at his alma mater, Texas State University. M. Walker is an avid meditator, runner, reader, and a proud progressive Texan.
Al Mitchell
Dr. Al Mitchell is a Building Scientist and Certification Manager at Phius, working in technical capacities ranging from research to project certification, as well as an adjunct professor at Illinois Tech. Al received his PhD in Architectural Engineering in 2025 at Illinois Tech. Prior to that he earned his bachelor’s in architectural engineering from Illinois Tech and his master's in Architecture from Ball State University.
Craig Stevenson
Craig Stevenson is President of AUROS Group, which pioneered the use of technology to bridge the gap between building science and data science. Craig is co-author of the award-winning book, “The Power of Existing Buildings—Save Money, Improve Health and Reduce Environmental Impacts” and the often-referenced ASTM article, “Project Case Studies and the Lessons they Teach about Whole Building Envelope Air Leakage Testing.” Finally, Craig holds four United States’ patents in the field of data science for the built environment.
Chris Magwood
Chris works with the Embodied Carbon Team in the Carbon Free Buildings Program. He brings focus on carbon-storing material and the residential sector to the team, using his experience with LCA studies and policy development to support the team’s work.
Chris has been designing and building zero-carbon buildings throughout his 25-year career. From 2005 to 2018, he was a lead instructor in a hands-on design/build program at Endeavour Centre and was responsible for many zero-carbon, zero-toxin, and zero-waste buildings.
In 2019, he helped found Builders for Climate Action and codeveloped the BEAM tool for measuring material emissions in residential buildings. He authored four major studies of embodied carbon in new construction for Canadian governments and helped Canadian cities develop an embodied carbon policy.
Chris published eight books on green construction, most recently coauthoring Build Beyond Zero: New Ideas for Carbon Smart Architecture (Island Press, 2022) with Bruce King.
Eva King
Dr. King has been involved in investigations and research into indoor environments and health, allergens, asthma and immunology for about 20 years. Her work has been published in many peer-reviewed scientific publications, and she regularly presents at conferences and workshops.
Her focus is helping clients with underlying medical conditions identify building-related problems that contribute to their health issues, often by direct physician referral.
Dr. King received her Master in Biochemistry in her native Germany, and her Doctorate in Immunology/Epidemiology from the University of Oxford, UK, and is a Council-certified Indoor Environmental Consultant (CIEC, ACAC #180311).
She is a member of ASHRAE, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), and the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ), and previously served on the Board of Directors and as Technical Conference Chair of the Indoor Air Quality Association.
Kristina Baer
Kristina is a national trial lawyer who represents sick people against the companies that made them sick. She founded Just Well Law to help clients recover financially so that they can rebuild their health and their lives.
Kristina is used to high profile, high stakes litigation. At a national trial firm, she represented plaintiffs in bet-the-company cases like Trilogy against SAP, the Medical University of South Carolina against AstraZeneca, Ericsson against Samsung, and TiVo against Comcast. These cases resulted in over $1 billion in revenue for their clients. For TiVo, she led back-to-back trial teams of more than 20 lawyers to victories before the International Trade Commission, ultimately leading to nine-figure royalties. She was honored by her peers as a Texas Rising Star from 2015-2019.
As an Assistant US Attorney, Kristina then represented the United States in civil actions, including catastrophic personal injury. She defended Army doctors accused of medical malpractice, USPS drivers after catastrophic accidents, the Air Force in premises liability, and the VA and FAA in employment disputes.
After tragedy hit her own family, she returned to the plaintiffs’ side and founded Just Well Law to help other families in crisis. She built the personal injury firm she couldn’t find for her own family. Health and wellness require financial resources, and Kristina is relentless in pursuing the maximum recovery for her clients because she has been there too.
Kristina attended Princeton University and then Yale Law School. Committed to using the law as a tool of empowerment, she has helped people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda find financial freedom, founded the domestic violence clinic at Yale Law School, and helped the Ministry of Justice of Liberia launch a sex crimes prosecution unit with the Carter Center. She served as a federal clerk for Nancy Gertner in the District of Massachusetts. And she teaches trial lawyers as an instructor for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.
Kevin Witt
Kevin’s story starts in Temple, TX where he was born into a family of carpenters, home builders, and tradesmen. He began building homes as an apprentice carpenter in high school then studied architecture at Texas Tech and earned a Master of Architecture Degree in 2002, which included study in Italy and Mexico. He worked as an architectural intern in Colorado for five years before moving to the Pacific Northwest, where he started a design build firm named First Lamp with a fellow Texas Tech alum. During the following 14 years, he built many of the homes featured on this page and stoked his increasing interest in High Performance Homes. After 17 years in Seattle, he answered the call of home and returned to Central Texas with Jana and their two boys.
Trey Farmer
Trey Farmer is Partner and Principal at Forge Craft Architecture + Design. With nearly two decades of experience in sustainable design and construction, and as the firm’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Trey is passionate about projects that make life better for people and our planet. He is LEED AP Certified as well as a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC). In addition to his architectural expertise, he is a certified permaculture designer and teacher.
Trey currently serves on the Austin Passive House Alliance Board, the National Passive House Alliance Council and Policy Committee, the Humid Climate Conference Steering Committee and the ULI Austin Resilience & Sustainability Committee.
Prior to his architecture and design work, Trey worked as a writer, bartender, job coach, teacher, carpenter, natural builder, community organizer and orchardist. He enjoys gardening, swimming at Deep Eddy, hiking and spending quality time with his family in the passive house he designed with his wife.