First names released for our all-female judging panel - Future Cities Forum Winter Awards 2026

Image: Professor Rokia Raslan of UCL's  Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (Courtesy UCL)

Future Cities Forum is releasing the first tranche of names of its all-female judging panel for the Winter Awards in January 2026.

Professor Rokia Raslan

Rokia Raslan is a Professor of Built Environment Decarbonisation at the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (UCL IEDE). Her expertise lies at the intersection of computational analysis, policymaking, and the decarbonisation of the built environment. Her research focuses on developing evidence-based building-level mitigation and adaptation policies that are inclusive-addressing under-researched contexts-resilient to future climate change, and responsive to the needs of vulnerable and underserved communities.

She has led and contributed to research for a wide range of organisations, including the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, BEIS), the Energy Technologies Institute, the Institute for Sustainability, the Greater London Authority, the Oman Electricity Authority, the British Council, and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

Her recent work includes defining and identifying 'complex to decarbonise' or 'hard to decarbonise' homes and developing retrofit solutions tailored to their needs; refining domestic fabric energy-efficiency assumptions for the UK's Sixth Carbon Budget; assessing the climate resilience of micro, small, and medium industrial workplaces in Egypt; evaluating the Energiesprong retrofit approach; and examining best practice in deploying solid-wall insulation in UK homes.

Image: Donna Nolan, Chief Executive of Watford Borough Council

Donna Nolan

Donna Nolan is Chief Executive of Watford Borough Council.  She has a proven track record in promoting and driving through forward-thinking, ambitious plans that benefit everyone.  Since joining Watford, Donna has transformed its culture and performance.  She has also reset the Council’s approach to strategic planning and driven a new focus on economic development, health, housing, sustainability and commercial relationships.

With a strategic mindset and dedicated to understanding and improving people’s quality of life, Donna balances the competing demands of service provision, organisational performance and partnership working.  She follows a visible-management approach: developing talent; creating opportunities; investing in training; and forging a culture of active engagement.

Donna is a solicitor by profession, has practised in the private sector, and has held a number of board level roles in local government.

Image: Laura Dyer MBE, Deputy Chief Executive Places, Arts Council England (courtesy ACE)

Laura Dyer MBE

Laura Dyer MBE is Deputy Chief Executive Places, Engagement & Libraries (Executive Board Member) at

Arts Council England. She leads on the growing agenda around local government, devolution and place-making, as well as overall leadership of all five of the Arts Council’s area teams.

Before joining the Arts Council, Laura was Chief Executive of East Midlands Arts Board. Until 2010, when she became Executive Director Midlands and South West, she held the post of Executive Director, East Midlands. During her time in the East Midlands, Laura led a capital development programme which transformed the region's cultural landscape, with a total investment of over £130 million creating six new arts and cultural facilities.

After postgraduate studies at Essex University, Laura started her career in the arts in a number of theatre and community arts companies before moving into large outdoor events programming at the Garden Festival Wales. She went on to work for local authorities in Norfolk and London. Laura joined the Arts Council in 2003. She is a member of the Executive Board.

Image: Clare Reinhold, Building Services Director at BDP (courtesy BDP)

Clare Reinhold

Clare Reinhold is an experienced BDP Building Services Director specialising in laboratories, complex facilities and buildings for learning and research. She is Science and Research Sector lead for the London office and her clients include AstraZeneca (Global R&D Centre and Corporate HQ featuring the UK’s largest laboratory), University College London (Automotive Propulsion Lab, Courtauld Laboratory), and the John Innes Centre in Norwich (Next Generation Infrastructure project ).

Clare led the engineering delivery team on AstraZeneca’s new global R&D centre and corporate headquarters, a major project involving the relocation of the research centre from its former site at Alderley Park to the new Cambridge bio-medical campus site and is currently leading the engineering teams working across the Redevelopment of the NGI site in Norwich, providing new Net Zero Carbon plant research lab building and horticultural facilities for John Innes Centre.

Clare adopts a strong integrated approach to design, using innovative and passive engineering solutions to deliver low energy, low carbon buildings. Technologies she has designed include borehole cooling integrated with chilled beams, below ground earth tubes providing passive heating and cooling, passive ventilation solutions and provision of district heating and cooling networks.

Image: Vicky Smith, Strategy & Major Projects Director at National Museums Liverpool - courtesy NML

Vicky Smith

Vicky Smith leads the Strategy & Major Projects Teams at National Museums Liverpool. This includes the delivery of the museums three pillars of physical transformation; the Waterfront Transformation Strategy, City and Collections Strategy and Collections store. Vicky trained as an architect and after many years in the private sector moved into local government in 2008. She has worked in core cities across the UK delivering major regeneration policies and projects. 

National Museums Liverpool wants to re-engage local communities and empower individuals in its Waterfront Transformation Project,  to bring this significant and incredibly rich part of the waterfront back to life. Its landmark project will transform the area between the Royal Albert Dock and Mann Island, as well as revitalising all the Museums' waterfront facilities, as part of a masterplan to reimagine Liverpool’s waterfront.

Image: Dr Lucy Montague, Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture (Courtesy Dr Lucy Montague)

Dr Lucy Montague

Dr Lucy Montague is a leading authority on high streets, known for her influential book High Street: How Our Town Centres Can Bounce Back from the Retail Crisis (co-authored with David Rudlin and Vicky Payne) and her ground-breaking research project Tales from the High Street, funded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851’s £100k Built Environment Fellowship. In 2024 she was appointed Parliamentary Special Advisor to the House of Lords Built Environment Select Committee for their inquiry into the high streets, culminating in the report High Streets: Life Beyond Retail?.

Dr Montague is an active advocate for policy reform to support high street recovery, speaking at both Labour and Conservative Party conferences, and has been cited in parliamentary debate. Her work has received widespread media attention, with appearances on national TV, radio, and in leading newspapers. As a Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture, she also delivers expert training to professionals in urban regeneration, shaping policy and practice across sectors.