Jodi Smits Anderson

Jodi Smits Anderson has a passion for community-informed, cross-system activated solutions and deep experience in codes and policy, embodied carbon, team cultivation, and process work. Jodi is a FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL-AP, regenerative practitioner, NESEA Board member, past regional and national U.S. Green Building Council committee member, wife, mom, hiker, kayaker, knitter, and storyteller. She has worked for a national think tank, a renowned A+E firm as Managing Principle of a 70-person office, and for nearly 15 years as the first Director of Sustainability in NYS government.

She has spoken at the Living Future conference in Seattle and in Washington, DC, at the NACUBO conference in Austin, TX, at the first Wellness in Design conference in San Diego, CA, and several times each at Greenbuild, NESEA’s Building Energy Boston, and the NYS Green Building Conference. She is an RPI Adjunct teaching professional practice, and has been a guest teacher at SUNY ESF, RPI, Ithaca College, NYU, Cornell, and SUNY Albany. She is a NY Energy Code trainer, the 2018 recipient of the Green Building Advocate award, and has assisted in research and writing for Project Drawdown, which cites the 100 market-proven ways we already have in our toolkit to reduce CO2 in our atmosphere.

She had a featured article that appeared in the Journal of Green Building's V14 N3 in July of 2019, on “Excellence in Building Envelopes”, and has co-written a thought leadership paper on ResHalls of the Near Future, learning from COVID, economics, equity, shifts in education styles, and health in buildings. Her most recent publication was published in 2025 by ASHRAE, on exploring the health cost avoidance and impacts on disadvantaged communities, in collaboration with three exceptional co-writers and analysts. Jodi’s goal is to understand and incorporate informed sustainable practices into design, construction, and living, and to share whatever she has learned and learn still more from whomever will talk with her.