The IHS Alumni Impact Award celebrates the work of alumni who are putting their knowledge and experience into practice and contributing to positive change in cities and communities around the world. This year's jury brings together professionals with diverse expertise in urban development, research, policy and practice to assess the submitted initiatives.
Meet the members of the 2026 jury and discover the perspectives and expertise they bring to this year’s selection.
Blake Robinson
Blake Robinson is a Project-based Researcher focused on just and sustainable infrastructure in African cities at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS). In this role, he is responsible for coordinating partnerships with universities and other organisations in Europe and Africa, acquiring funding to expand related work, and overseeing the maintenance and growth of the infrahub.africa case study collection.
Blake holds a Business Science degree from the University of Cape Town and a M.Phil in Sustainable Development from Stellenbosch University. He has led research projects for Stellenbosch University and Utrecht University, and authored over 20 publications and reports on sustainable cities and related themes. Beyond academia, he led the Urban Systems portfolio at ICLEI Africa (South Africa) and the Cities Team at Circle Economy (Netherlands), and has consulted for the Hot or Cool Institute (Germany) and OneEarth Living (Canada). His expertise includes sustainable cities, sustainable infrastructure, urban metabolism, circular cities, low-carbon mobility and techniques of futuring.
Jammy Zhu
Jammy Zhu is an urban strategist and project manager with over a decade of experience in international architecture and urbanism, specialising in managing complex projects across the Asia-Pacific region. She works with multidisciplinary teams to translate and leverage creative ideas into scalable impact, bridging design ambition with strategic and business thinking.
She is also the co-founder of Spring Onion Atelier, an interdisciplinary creative practice focusing on bottom-up placemaking and spatial justice, through which she has led workshops, research, and participatory projects exploring more inclusive ways of shaping cities. Her interests centre on how design, systems thinking, and a business-minded approach can contribute to more just, resilient, and experiential cities.
Julie Greenwalt
Julie Greenwalt is the Senior Climate Advisor at Cities Alliance, where she leads efforts to integrate community-led and inclusive approaches into city-wide climate action. She has over 15 years of experience advancing climate finance, nature-based solutions and urban resilience across more than 20 countries. Julie’s work focuses on bridging global climate policy with local implementation to drive equitable and transformative change in cities.
Shyam Khandekar
Shyam is Co-founder, Director and Editorial Director of the knowledge platform, MyLiveableCity. He is an urban designer, city planner and architect with four decades of design experience in Europe and India.
He was the founder and director of the award winning Dutch design practice, Khandekar Urban Design and Landscape, that continued under the name of BDP Khandekar. He has lectured and published extensively on different aspects of Liveable Cities at universities and conferences across the world.
My Liveable City has published four books under his guidance: Affordable Housing, Inclusive Cities, Designing For Sustainability Through Upcycling, Streets For All: 50 Ideas for Shaping Resilient Cities and the latest release published in 2025 - Urban Sustainability Through Brownfield Development - Learning from the Nirlon Knowledge Park, Mumbai.
Shyam believes cities can only be called successful and sustainable if they can be made truly liveable for all.