SOM Foundation Announces Jury for the 2025 European Research Prize

Pedro Gadanho is an architect, author, and independent curator based in Lisbon. A 2020 Loeb Fellow from Harvard University, Gadanho holds an MA in art and architecture, and a PhD in Architecture and Mass Media from the University of Porto. From 2012 to 2016, he was the curator of contemporary architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where he coordinated the Young Architects Program and curated exhibitions such as 9+1 Ways of Being Political, Uneven Growth, and A Japanese Constellation. Between 2015 and 2019, he was the founding Director of MAAT, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, in Lisbon, where he initiated more than fifty exhibition projects, including shows and publications such as Utopia/Dystopia, Tension & Conflict, and Eco-Visionaries. During 2020–21, he led a bid for European Capital of Culture 2027 by a coalition of seventeen cities in Portugal’s interior, and became a Guest Professor at the University of Beira Interior. In the Spring of 2024, he was a Guest Design Critic at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is the author of Climax Change! How Architecture Must Transform in the Age of Ecological Emergency (ACTAR Publishers: New York/Barcelona, 2022). His previous book, Arquitetura em Público, won the FAD Prize for Thought and Criticism in 2012. He has edited the BEYOND bookazine, the ShrapnelContemporary blog, and contributes regularly to international publications.

Iker Gil (Chair) has been the executive director of the SOM Foundation since 2019. He is the founding partner of MAS Studio and founder of the nonprofit MAS Context. Gil has edited or coedited several books, including Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio and Shanghai Transforming. He has curated multiple exhibitions, including Nocturnal Landscapes, Poured Architecture: Sergio Prego on Miguel Fisac, and BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, part of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. He was cocurator of Exhibit Columbus 2020–2021 and associate curator of the US Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. He was the 2024 Victor A. Morgenstern Family Visiting Chair in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) along with architect Michel Rojkind. He has also previously taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and the Escola da Cidade (São Paulo). Gil has been selected as one of “Fifty Under Fifty: Innovators of the 21st Century” by a jury composed by Stanley Tigerman, Jeanne Gang, Qingyun Ma, and Marion Weiss, named New Progressive by Architect Magazine, and included in the Hall of Fame in Newcity’s annual Design 50.

With nearly twenty years of teaching experience and a multidisciplinary background in public health, urban planning, and environmental design, Meredith Glaser brings a holistic understanding to social inquiry and system change. Her published research and expertise regarding the transition to sustainable, inclusive, and healthy cities have positioned her as one of the most sought-after experts on urban cycling systems. Glaser is currently CEO of the Urban Cycling Institute, an Amsterdam-based nonprofit dedicated to research, higher education, and capacity building for transformative change. She is also appointed Professor of Cycling at Ghent University. She serves on numerous boards and advisory committees including the Cycling Research Board.

Carlos Mínguez Carrasco is an architect and curator based in Stockholm. He is Chief Curator at ArkDes–the Swedish National Centre for Architecture and Design. At ArkDes, he is in charge of the museum’s content vision, and overviews the program of exhibitions, publications, events, and the work with the collections. He has curated the exhibition Kiruna Forever (2020) and Joar Nango - Girjegumpi: The Sámi Architecture Library at the Nordic Countries Pavilion for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. He has been part of leading the reorganization and redesign of the museum that reopened in September 2024, including the redefinition of the collections display, research, and acquisitions program. Independently, he organized, with the After Belonging Agency, the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale, a multi-venue event that included exhibitions, conferences, a residence program, and a publication across the city of Oslo. Mínguez Carrasco also worked with Performa curator Charles Aubin on the research around the use of performance by architects presented in a publication and a conference held in Performa 17 with the title “Making Room for Action.”