Awards Jury

John Darveau, ALEP, AIA
Architect / Planner
frk architects + engineers

John is a senior architectural leader with nearly four decades of experience shaping high‑performance educational environments through thoughtful design leadership, visioning, and evaluation. He is widely recognized for guiding collaborative design processes, facilitating meaningful stakeholder engagement, and establishing clear criteria that align design quality with long‑term educational goals.

As a Senior Project Architect and Accredited Learning Environment Planner at frk architects + engineers, John leads visioning and programming efforts for complex educational projects. He helps clients translate instructional priorities into effective, future‑ready design strategies and regularly facilitates consensus among boards, administrators, educators, and community members. In addition, John delivers firmwide training on Future Ready Schools, advancing best practices across the organization.

John is an active leader within both the design and education communities. He has served six years on the MWGL Regional Board and has been an engaged member of the A4LE organization for nearly three decades. His professional contributions also include chairing statewide AIA conferences, serving on design juries, presenting on adaptive reuse and the preservation of historic school facilities, and contributing to numerous professional publications.

Tracy Eich, AIA
Senior Principal, Texas Design Leader
Stantec

Tracy is a Senior Design Principal from Austin, Texas. He is our Texas Design Leader and Stantec’s Design Director for the Education Sector. leading the design effort on large scale complex transformative projects. Tracy has the ability to engage our clients, understand and process both the functional needs as well as the aspirational goals of a project. This has led to some of our most innovative, creative, distinct projects. Tracy is very collaborative in nature, spends time listening to learn what’s at the heart of the client’s needs, shares his knowledge, insight, and expertise to create a design solution that translates the client’s vision into simple clear elegant and sophisticated design solutions.

Tracy’s designs always reflect what the client values. They are contextual in nature and speak to the culture of the local campus and community. Tracy works to create spaces that are impactful, meaningful, and comfortable in nature. Spaces that engage inspire and connect people. Places that become a unique and significant identity statement for his clients and a memorable place for the users. Tracy creates places that unlock human potential.

Stacy Roth, NCIDQ, LEED AP
Principal and K-12 Education Interiors Leader
DLR Group

Stacy is a Principal and K–12 Education Interiors Leader at DLR Group, where she champions interior design within the firm’s integrated design practice. With more than 20 years of experience, Stacy connects research and insights to design solutions that drive meaningful outcomes for students, educators, and communities. She has spent two decades building and leading design teams, partnering closely with school districts, and creating learning environments that prioritize wellbeing, joy, and improved student outcomes. Her diverse background spans interior architecture, FF&E, and planning, allowing her to holistically showcase the impact of thoughtfully designed educational spaces. A dedicated leader and mentor, Stacy actively supports the growth of interiors teams across the firm. She is deeply engaged in the education design community, serving as president of the A4LE Kansas City Chapter, sitting on the MWGL board, participating in the House of Delegates, and contributing to numerous Kansas City–area design and education organizations.

Dr. Robert Dillon
Educator & Author

Design Solutions for Modern Learning
Dr. Robert Dillon has served as a designer, educator and leader for over thirty years. His work focuses on solutions and supporting change in organizations to maximize learning. Dr. Dillon works with schools and districts in collaborative partnership to shift thinking and break the inertia of traditional school. Dr. Dillon supports school design in a number of areas including: learning environments, technology integration, and instructional design. The core purpose of the work continues to flow through an empathy lens that considers what the optimal design would be for students. Dr. Dillon has been involved with design projects around the globe that have included solutions for higher education pre-k classrooms; public libraries; urban, rural, suburban schools, and a number of charter and independent schools.

Design Philosophy
Dr. Dillon has five areas of focus in his work with intentional design. These areas are central to the solutions created and processes used for success.

• Syncing systems is essential to success.
• Sustainable solutions are possible with the right commitment and process.
• Solutions designed in the forest rarely are heard or implemented.
• Translating research to practice is key to success.
• Learning environments deeply impact all other aspects of learning.

Focus of Work
Through his partnerships with learning organizations, Dr. Dillon focuses on these levers of change.

• Helping teachers see the power of modern learning environments
• Supporting leaders in a comprehensive design process.
• Making sure that instruction, technology integration, and learning environments support each other.
• Finding low cost/no cost solutions that can support purchases
• Staying practical and realistic based on the current systems dynamics of an organization.

Dr. Dillon has served as a designer, educator and leader for over thirty years. His work focuses on solutions and supporting change in organizations to maximize learning. Dr. Dillon works with schools and districts in collaborative partnership to shift thinking and break the inertia of traditional school. Dr. Dillon has been involved with design projects around the globe that have included solutions for higher education pre-k classrooms; public libraries; urban, rural, suburban schools.