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The Institute's Tracks & Courses

The Institute of Integrated Regenerative Design offers a wide range of courses, from introductory to professional. The Core Curriculum track offers introductory to intermediate classes open to all learners, while the 10 specialized tracks each address the specialized challenges of specific design disciplines.

Each specialized track provides in-depth training presented at an advanced undergraduate or graduate level, allowing professionals to learn new tools that harness their existing expertise to create regenerative technologies, thriving ecosystems, and healthy communities.

Students typically chose a track related to their area of expertise or interest, following that track path starting with introductory courses, then advancing through more advanced courses in the Foundations, Professional, and Lead levels.

All tracks seek to develop a whole-systems understanding of regenerative and sustainable practice while providing the tools to allow practitioners to apply their domain-specific expertise as part of a transdisciplinary team that functions at the whole-systems level. 

All tracks can potentially lead to professional certifications and credentials awarded by the Institute of Integrated Regenerative Design.

All new students start with the two prerequisite courses in the Core Curriculum track, The Process of Regeneration and Design for a Living Earth, to lay the foundations for the more advanced courses. 

Choose Your Track:

Core Curriculum

These courses provide learning opportunities that are broadly applicable to learners in all tracks offered by IIRD, including the two prerequisite courses where new students start their learning journey.

Leadership 

The Leadership Track provides the tools, information, and context that executives need to effectively lead companies and teams practicing regenerative design at scale.

Community

The Community Track equips professionals working in fields that support the individuals and communities impacted by regenerative development, both internal-facing and public-facing.

Holistic Decision-Making

The Holistic Decision-Making track equips managers and decision-makers with a powerful suite of holistic tools that build the capacity to make whole-systems, context-driven, values-aligned decisions that support ecological…

Finance

The Finance Track equips financial professionals with the new framework of an ecosystemic economic and finance model, which considers the Earth’s biosphere to be our primary source of wealth and capital.

Design

The Design Track takes the existing skills of professional designers, from architects and engineers to urban planners and business process professionals, and reframes them into a regenerative design context that allows them to create sustainable…

Operations

The Operations Track takes a critical step forward in the regenerative systems world by modeling the Operations and Maintenance professionals as first-class designers themselves.

Agroecology

The Agroecology Track provides the training and tools needed to create regenerative and sustainable food, fiber, and forestry systems in any climate zone and ecosystem.

Ecosystem Regeneration

The Ecosystem Regeneration Track applies a whole-systems approach to regeneration of ecosystems and biomes at the watershed scale.

Biocompatible Design

The Biocompatible Design Track is for design practitioners specifically interested in applying the Biocompatible Design Standard to technologies and environments across the full range of applications.

Human Health

The Human Health Track examines the relationship between technology, environment, diet, and optimal human health.

Foundations

Foundations courses are designed to provide professionals with the foundational
knowledge required to effectively work on projects that seek to be regenerative and
sustainable. These courses are typically presented at an advanced undergraduate level,
with students expected to already have the basic knowledge covered in the first two or
three years of an undergraduate program in their field.


Foundations programs are open to learners age 18 and above. These are longer classes that often provide a rich mix of lecture, storytelling, hands-on activities, field exercises, and design projects. The in-person courses at this level are 15-day intensives that require the full-time, focused engagement of students.


Many of the Foundations courses have as a prerequisite the completion of two Introductory online courses: The Process of Regeneration and Design for a Living Earth. See course descriptions for required prerequisites.

Continuing Education

Continuing Education courses are designed to address important and emerging topics,
supplementing our standard courses and helping professionals keep up to date. These
courses are all offered online, sometimes as live webinars with Q&A, other times as on-demand courses available through our learning portal.


Continuing Education courses are categorized as either Core Curriculum or as specific to a particular learning track. Learners are encouraged to take any course they find
interesting or that will support their learning objectives, regardless of track.


All credentials offered by IIRD require a minimum of 36 hours of Continuing Education
credit every two years, 12 hours of which must be track-specific, in order to maintain the
credential. All IIRD Continuing Education courses count towards these hours, and
credential-holders may also self-report applicable courses offered by other training
providers for credit.

Lead

Lead courses are designed for graduates of the Professional-level courses who also have at least 10 years of industry experience. These students return to participate in a Professional course in their track, but this time take on the role of a team lead helping to coordinate the capstone design project being undertaken by transdisciplinary group of Professional students.


These courses offer additional training in the skills required to coordinate large-scale regenerative projects and successfully lead large teams of regenerative design professionals.

Professional

Professional courses prepare professionals working in a wide range of fields to take on
critical roles in regenerative and sustainable design. These courses are presented at a
graduate-school level and expect the student to have already have completed an undergraduate degree in their field or have equivalent experience.


Courses at the Professional level can be thought of as graduate certificate programs presented in a 7-week, mini-semester format. These programs are intense and focused, with learners expected to be engaged all day for five days each week. This is basically a mini-masters program packed into a half semester.


The prerequisite for the Professional courses is the successful completion of the Foundations course in the same track.

Introductory ​

Introductory courses are open to all learners age 14 and above, offering an introduction and overview of critical topics in regenerative and sustainable design at a level that is broadly accessible to a wide audience.


Introductory courses are typically either online classes taught over several weeks or 2-3 day in-person courses with hands-on and experiential learning.

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Dr. Nicole Wagner

Agroecology Track Advisory Board

Dr. Nicole Wagner, associate professor at Texas State University, focuses on soil health and horticultural crop production. She is the founder and project director for Texas State University’s Bobcat Farm, a student-run regenerative fruit and vegetable farm that also serves as a research site for exploring regenerative crop production practices, soil amendments, and composting methods.

 

She has won several awards, including the Texas State Presidential Excellence in Teaching, and has been a co-principal or principal investigator for grants and private donations totaling over $6million. After completing her Ph.D., she worked at USDA in Washington D.C. forecasting commodity crop production in South America, developing briefing materials for the Secretary of Agriculture, and organizing senior executive-level meetings in Washington D.C. and internationally.

 

In 2008, she was a member of the U.S. government’s delegation to the United Nations Presidential-Level Conference on World Food Security in Rome. A farmer at heart, she has worked on a large corn-soy farm in Minnesota, as well as an organic vegetable farm and the
largest organic dairy in Montana. Currently, she operates a small biointensive farm in Buda, Texas.

Chase Jones

Agroecology Track Lead Instructor

Chase Jones is a permaculture designer and consultant with a background in anthropology, conservation archaeology, ecology, and geospatial analysis. He is the co-founder of Biodesic Strategies, a design and construction service that offers ecological design and green infrastructure installation. Working throughout northwest Arkansas and surrounding areas, Biodesic Strategies hosts educational and community events that promote the wider adoption of regenerative and sustainable design approaches.

 

Chase’s undergraduate studies at the University of Arkansas focused on anthropology, with an emphasis on archeological research, using GIS (Geographic Information System) platforms and remote sensing to perform geospatial analysis and model the impacts of modern land use on archeological sites in areas such as the Chicama Valley of Peru. He also acted as a research assistant for a project using dendrochronological study of shortleaf pines to reconstruct historic summer moisture patterns across the central United States.

 

Chase has extensive experience in the design of perennial polyculture food systems, composting, and soil fertility.  He is certified by the Soil Food Web School as a Soil Food Web Consultant and microscopy technician, and also specializes in regenerative earthworks. His practical consulting experience and background in the geospatial sciences allow him to help students understand the tools needed to capture site data, synthesize an accurate site survey, and develop a working understanding of any design site.

Opalyn Brenger

Board of Directors, Agroecology and Community Track Instructor

IIRD is Opalyn’s fifth nonprofit board, after serving on the board of four other nonprofits, including two 501(c)3’s, a 501(c)2, and a 501(c)13, over the past two decades. She continues to hold the role of either secretary or treasurer for all four of these other organizations, overseeing accounts payable, accounts receivable, and various record-keeping tasks.

 

Her three bachelor’s degrees cover fields as diverse as business administration, accounting, economics, geography, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, hydrology, mineralogy, ecology, and biodiversity.

 

Opalyn has extensive hands-on experience with community development, farm management, livestock systems, and natural building, as well as training in sustainable and regenerative design. She has been involved in the critical review and development of both the Integrated Regenerative Design Framework and the Biocompatible Design Standard over the past several years.

Gary McNay

AIA, LEED AP BD+C, LFA
Board of Directors, O&M Track Lead Instructor

Gary is the Founder and Principal Architect at Vitalplace Design. Working as the principal on numerous major building projects for large research universities, he has served in leadership roles on design teams focused on advancing human health, accelerating scientific research, and creating rich, immersive learning environments. For over 41 years, his work with these teams focused on achieving the highest level of sustainability possible, including 12 LEED (platinum, gold, and silver) certified projects and 2 Living Building Challenge registered projects.

After reflection, and additional training and certifications in Regenerative Design, with lessons from First Peoples’ groups, he is focused on collaborating with networks, people, and projects
that are striving to achieve truly regenerative outcomes in education, research, and practice. 


Gary has led many professional development workshops, panels, and conference presentations on sustainability and regeneration for organizations such as the US Green Building Council,
The Society for College and University Planning, the Biophilic Leadership Summit, and the International Living Futures Institute.

Matt Stone

Ecosystem Regeneration Track Instructor

Matt has a BS in Biological Systems Engineering from Kansas State University, where his studies focused on the confluence of environmental, agricultural, and bioprocess engineering, and the interrelationships between those fields. He has worked in both a soil water research lab and an agricultural engineering research lab studying how changes in long-term weather patterns affect soil hydrology and agricultural yields.


His recent professional experience includes landscape construction, where he has worked for the last 5 years. Currently, he works as a project manager executing the construction of more than a dozen concurrent multi-million dollar commercial and state installations in Northern Colorado. 

 

Matt has been a part of the IIRD team since 2022, combining his background in engineering with his practical experience in construction to provide a grounded and execution-focused eye to the

IIRD curriculum. Since joining the team, he has been involved in the development of all of its current courses and the Biocompatible Design Standards. 


Matt is an active volunteer for a number of environmental restoration and fire mitigation projects in the front range of Colorado.

Rachel Harris

Community Track Instructor

Rachel has a BS in Psychology from Capella University, where her studies focused on building regenerative relationships between humans and the rest of the natural world.  She brings her connection skills and Level 1 Internal Family Systems Practitioner certification to domestic violence shelters and low-income families who often deal with substance abuse and trauma. She co-wrote curriculum called “Go Feel Yourself” geared towards women, helping them grow beyond societal limitations, expanding their emotional range, and regaining connection with their emotional power.

 

 

Since joining the team, Rachel has been involved in developing curriculum for IIRD’s Community Track, as well developing grief tending training for the core team. 

 

When she’s not working with IIRD, she leads community grief groups and participates in local grief tending ceremonies. Her love of textiles and art has led her to creating digital art including logos and healing artwork.

Brent Lawson

Board of Directors, Ecosystemic Finance Track Lead Instructor

Brent holds an MBA in Finance, with almost 30 years of experience in large financial organizations, working in a variety of roles ranging from business analysis and risk management to product management. His risk management roles have included managing credit risk and fraud
strategies on multi-billion-dollar financial portfolios.

 

Product management roles have included building big-data cloud-based solutions on multi-billion-dollar credit acquisitions portfolios and other technical product development.

 

Brent’s current interests include scaling integrated regenerative design and regenerative finance methods that provide sustainable development practices for regenerative communities. His research includes assisting in the further development of the IRD Framework’s Ecosystemic Economics and Finance model.

Alan Booker

Executive Director, 
Lead Instructor

Alan is the Founding Executive Director and Lead Instructor of the Institute of IntegratedRegenerative Design® (IIRD). He is the creator of the Integrated Regenerative Design® framework and the author of the Biocompatible Design® Standard.

After completing a degree in Electrical Engineering, Alan moved into systems engineering roles that started his exploration of large-scale sustainability. He currently has over 35 years’ experience in engineering and 25 years in sustainable and regenerative design.

With decades of hands-on experience designing large-scale, sustainable systems, Alan is a LEED AP™ BD+C, holds Living Futures Accreditation (LFA) for working with Living Building Challenge and Living Community Challenge projects.

Alan is a frequent guest lecturer and guest speaker for many colleges and professional conferences, and has developed the core curriculum for IIRD.