Our co-creation model involves collaborators and contributors from a variety of fields including architecture, planning, geography, ecology, graphic design and media.
team
Scott Francisco
Founder and Director
Scott is a Co-founder of Cities4Forests and the Wood at Work community, as well as the Founder and Director of Pilot Projects. He has pioneered multi-disciplinary communities of practice like The Future of Forest Work, Wood at Work, and Thriving Forests and Regenerative Built Environments.
With a background in architecture, urbanism, construction, and consulting, Scott emphasizes stakeholder engagement in design amidst today's focus on efficiency. He speaks on systems thinking, forests and wood, workplace design, culture, and sustainability. Scott has taught at McGill School of Architecture, Michael Graves College, Parsons The New School for Design, Stanford in New York, and University of Kentucky School of Architecture. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scott grew up in the Toronto area in a family environment of hands-on making and problem solving. Summers at a lakeside cottage meant constant repairs and work with wood, which was often provided by nearby trees. His curiosity and sense of adventure have led to projects, travel and hair-raising stories in many parts of the world.
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Dr. Sarah Jane Wilson
Director of Nature-Based Projects
Sarah is a forest geographer with a background in ecology (MSc, BSc), human geography and tropical forests (PhD). Her research and practice connect culture and ecology in landscapes urban and rural, including conservation and restoration strategies, education, and community engagement. She has worked with community-based forest restoration and conservation enterprises in montane cloud forests in Andean Ecuador and the Nepalese Himalaya, and in lowland jungle in Guatemala’s Peten. Recent postdoc work with the University of Michigan and with the PARTNERS reforestation network focused on understanding the social and ecological drivers and outcomes of community forestry and restoration - and on crafting action-oriented research for the field. A recipient of the prestigious L’Oreal Women in Science Mentorship Award, she is dedicated to teaching and developing communities of practice around pressing social and environmental challenges.
Hailing from flat and windy rural Manitoba, her work feeds a childhood fascination with tropical forests and mountains.
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Garrett Siegers
Director
Garrett has dedicated two decades to reversing deforestation in Ecuador by developing carbon-negative forest products and launching the country’s first private REDD+ initiative. His work integrates conservation, natural forest management, community stewardship, and high-value biophilic product design to create resilient, forest-based economies in biodiversity hotspots. He is a Co-Founder of Whole Forest, serves as an LP and advisor to Savia Ventures, supports forest initiatives through Cities4Forests, and is a Kinship Conservation and Climatebase Fellow. Building on this impact-driven work, Garrett is now building a boutique investment advisory firm that generates alpha in public markets to channel liquidity into high-impact, conservation-focused investments across Latin America.
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Akoulina Connell
Director
Akoulina is an experienced executive and arts advocate who catalyzes systems transformation through co-creation and data innovation strategies to increase agility, transparency, inclusion, and public engagement. She has worked in both the public and private sectors; has led two provincial funding agencies; was managing editor of a literary press; worked in the IT sector; and has held communications roles in several Federal Departments.
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Kathleen Mulawka
Director
Kathleen is an independent community development consultant with 15 years of experience across the community, public and education sectors. Known for her analytical approach and collaborative mindset, Kathleen has led initiatives in project design and civic engagement across Canada and internationally, notably with youth and equity-seeking communities. She’s a seasoned strategist with a fervent passion for Canada’s official languages and is committed to using human-centred approaches to build meaningful relationships between communities. With a bachelor’s in environmental studies and a graduate certificate in sustainable development, Kathleen is an advocate for mobilizing collective and systemic change in pursuit of building a more sustainable and equitable society. She brings expertise in cross-cultural communication, program evaluation, and stakeholder engagement, complemented by her current studies in Service Design at the University of Toronto.
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Danica Meredith
Director
Danica Virginia Meredith is the Emerging Practice Lead at Quarry consulting, a boutique Canadian consulting firm. Danica engages in listening to, sense-making with, and way-making alongside her clients as a strategist, agile coach, and advisor. She is a third-generation female entrepreneur. A lateral thinker raised by a linear-thinking management consultant mother, Danica values diversity of thought and approach in organizations. An Ameri-Canadian, she is both polite and innovative. Montreal is her adopted home, where she lives with her 2 daughters, husband, and olde English bulldog, Romeo.
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Valeria Romano Lara
Sustainable Development Consultant
Valeria supports many of the development projects at Pilot Projects including the Future of Forest Work and Communities and the Partner Forest Program.
She graduated from The London School of Economics and Political Science with a Master's Degree in Development and Anthropology and has worked in the private and public sector, focusing on design, management, and evaluation. She has extensive experience in building strategic partnerships for project development. She is currently pursuing a PhD in International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy. Her area of interest is the relationship between community-based natural resource management and poverty and inequality alleviation.
Valeria grew up in Quito, Ecuador. Her parents instilled a love of adventure in her from a young age, encouraging her to see the world as much as possible. She is fluent in Spanish, English, German and is currently learning Italian. Raised in the Andes, she is obsessed with mountains. In her free time, she enjoys mountain biking and hiking with her two rescue dogs and has recently started paragliding.
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Milla Lopes-Luchak
Policy & Program Developer
Milla supports the research and networking areas for Pilot Project’s commitment to co-create sustainable solutions to challenges in global systems and environment.
She graduated from Concordia University, Montreal, in Political Science with a Minor in Women’s Studies. Milla has worked in NGOs and the public sector, focusing on community outreach, drafting immigration case histories, research, and preparing policy briefs. Focusing on political theory and government relations, she is interested in the socioeconomic impact that governments shed on everyday life and the cultural aspects that lead to different government formations and functioning.
Born in Montreal and raised in Brazil, Milla is interested in the inner workings of the Brazilian government and the country’s social movements. Having concluded her studies in Montreal, she is exploring the cultural and governmental differences between the two places and is invested in developing her understanding of organizations in Canada. In her spare time, Milla is a textile enthusiast, experimenting with many mediums and always looking to learn new things about knitting, crochet and tufting.
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