Laura Buchner is an architecture conservator with approximately twenty years of experience. Her experience includes execution and oversight of historic building investigations and conditions assessments, development and implementation of innovative conservation treatments, restoration design, preparation of construction documents, and providing construction administration services. Laura has special expertise in the restoration of Guastavino tile assemblies and the conservation of dalle de verre, a form of modern stained glass developed in France during the late 1920s that uses thick, colored glass pieces set in a matrix of epoxy or concrete. Laura has spoken at several conferences and has written multiple articles for the APT Bulletin, including, “Restoration of Akoustolith Tile at Saint John the Divine, New York City.” She is co-author of the chapter, “New York Hall of Science,” in the 2018 publication by the Getty Conservation Institute, Concrete: Case Studies in Conservation Practice. In 2018, she received a fellowship from the James Marston Fitch Charitable foundation to study approximately 50 installations of dalle de verre; she is currently writing a book on the subject, which is scheduled to be published by the Getty Conservation Institute with the support of the 2022 FAIC Samuel H. Kress Conservation Publication Fellowship.
Jean M. Prabhu is a lifelong New Yorker. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York where she attended LICH school of Nursing, Long Island University and Brooklyn Law School. Jean is a Registered Nurse and an attorney admitted to practice in the State of New York. She practiced law for 40+ years focusing on medical malpractice litigation. She has served on the boards of the Center for Elimination of Violence in the Family and the Seamen’s Society for Children and Families where she served as chairperson. She also has served on the board of the Iron Hills Civic Association and is currently a trustee of the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association. She maintains residences in both Staten Island and Manhattan. She has been married for more than fifty years and has two adult children and six grandchildren.
Al Shehadi is the principal of Shehadi Advisory, a financial advisory firm serving the community development sector. Shehadi Advisory provides services to lenders, nonprofits and developers, with a particular expertise in historic and new markets tax credit transactions. Al ran the originations side of Enterprise Community Investment’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program. Al expanded Enterprise’s work in twinned historic-tax credit (HTC) – NMTC transactions in urban neighborhoods. Prior to Enterprise, Al was a senior originator for the National Trust Community Investment Corporation, where he structured more than $100mm of HTC and HTC-NMTC investments, including the first twinned HTC-NMTC investment in the country. Al started in community development finance more than 20 years ago, financing supportive housing at the National Equity Fund, a leading national syndicator of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Al is a member of the NMTC Advisory Board of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, the pre-eminent national organization providing financial, advisory and policy services for the development of supportive housing for low-income and vulnerable individuals. Al served on the Board of the Housing Development Fund, the largest CDFI in Connecticut, from 2006 to 2021 and was a member of the executive committee for six years. Al holds a BS in Applied Math from Brown University and an MPA from Princeton University.
Ian Volner has contributed articles on architecture, design, and urbanism to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and Harper’s among other publications, and is a contributing editor at Architecture Today (UK). He is the author of numerous books and monographs, most recently Jorge Pardo: Public Projects and Commissions (Phaidon, 2021). He helped organize and served as a moderator for HDC’s 2025 Preservation Conference, Challenges and Opportunities for Historic Affordable Housing.