Sustainable Infrastructure

Cristina Contreras Casado is the founder and managing director of Sinfranova. With 15 years of experience, Contreras Casado has worked in the private sector, including construction and engineering companies, and in academia through her work as a researcher and instructor at Harvard University. During her eight years as a research associate at Harvard University, Contreras Casado has helped develop tools and frameworks to quantify sustainability in infrastructure projects leading to more than 40 global infrastructure projects around the world. In her efforts to promote sustainable infrastructure, she has collaborated as an independent expert consultant for international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank, Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, and GIZ in Germany. Contreras Casado is a member of several working groups in infrastructure sustainability including the United Nations Environment Programme's Expert Working Group on integrated approaches to sustainable infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) Sustainable Infrastructure Standards Committee-Leadership Writing Group, and the Planning Committee on Global Sustainability.

Judith Rodriguez is a researcher and instructor at Harvard University with domain expertise in sustainability, health, resilience, and the design of infrastructure, cities, and landscapes. She has extensive experience evaluating the social and environmental sustainability and climate resilience of infrastructure. Rodriguez contributed to the development and guidance of more than 60 assessments on diverse assets worth more than 20 billion USD. She is passionate about teaching strategies supporting health, equity, resilience, biodiversity, low carbon, and sustainable development goals (SDGs). Harvard Extension School, she teaches the capstone course in the Master in Global Development Practice program focused on consulting with client organizations for sustainable development projects; and the sustainable infrastructure course focusing on defining the main characteristics of sustainable infrastructure projects, their benefits, and contributions to the SDGs. Her students have worked on development plans for holistic justice, climate resilience, sustainable finance, COVID-19 resilience, English education, agricultural development, circular economy, food waste, early child education technology, emergency housing, and women empowerment.