Welcome to another episode of Luminate: Navigating the Unknown Through Creative Leadership.

Host Sarah Hempstead sits down with Dr. Andrea Behrman, professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Louisville and director of the Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric Neurorecovery. Together they talk about a career spent rewriting what recovery looks like for children living with paralysis.

Listeners will hear about:

• Dr. Behrman's path from frustrated clinician to scientist, and the three-and-a-half-year-old patient whose first steps changed the direction of her career
• Activity-based therapy built around "play with a purpose," and what it means to retrain the spinal cord from the bottom up
• How a new, unified space changed the program, from family-centered rooms shaped by parents' input to the "cohesion" staff found under one roof
• Where the science is headed next, including non-invasive spinal stimulation, a whole-body approach to recovery, and a growing global network of specialized centers

It's a conversation about curiosity, partnership, and learning not to "resist the flow of circumstances." It's also about what becomes possible when clinicians, scientists, families, and designers sit at the same table.

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Luminate is back! Welcome to another episode of Luminate: Navigating the Unknown Through Creative Leadership. We're kicking off a new season with host Sarah Hempstead and guests Councilor Michael-Paul Hart, Indianapolis City-County Councilor representing District 20, and Joseph Jarzen, client liaison and associate at Schmidt Associates, talking through the vision for turning 94 acres of nostalgia into a neighborhood's next chapter: Washington Square Mall.

Listeners will hear about:

• Councilor Hart's path to leadership, from HVAC service calls to city council
• The patchwork of ownership behind the mall's 1.2 million square feet, and the year and a half journey of bringing everyone to the table
• The vision plan for the site, shaped by community town halls, and the work still ahead

It's a conversation about patience as much as vision, and what it takes to bring owners, city departments, and a community to the table on a project decades in the making.

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To close out our Foundations + Futures anniversary series, we're flipping the format. Rather than revisiting a decade already lived, this roundtable turns to what's next: host Sarah Hempstead speaks with four Schmidt Associates team members, an architect, an interior designer, an engineer, and a landscape architect, about what today's practice looks like, what's changing fastest, and what they hope never does.

Listeners will hear from:

• Alvin Laguerre, Graduate Architect: on the lesson that's shaped his whole approach to Owners (listen to what they say and what they don't), why data centers have become one of the field's most urgent conversations, and the architect's responsibility to help owners understand the real impact of what they build.
• Asia Coffee, Senior Interior Designer: on ten years at the firm, AI's growing hold on design inspiration and what it means for the value of real expertise, and why she hopes the firm's creativity and genuine care for people never fade.
• Andrew Eckrich, Mechanical Engineer: on the industry's shift toward safer refrigerants and electrification, why the next generation of engineers needs to be broader rather than narrower, and how technology has compressed a mailed, triplicate submittal process into a quick turnaround.
• Stephanie Gates, Landscape Architect: on a personal story of the firm standing by her that convinced her she'd her professional home, and how climate change is upending decades-old assumptions about asphalt, native plants, and infrastructure built for a climate that no longer exists.

Along the way, the group traces the biggest shift in how the work gets done: technology, and the speed and collaboration it's unlocked. And they land on what they hope holds steady no matter how far the firm goes: creativity, humanity, and the value of solving problems together.

This is the final chapter of Foundations + Futures, but as Sarah puts it, the story is far from over. Here's to the next 50.

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