Cities are constantly evolving, and planners play a central role in guiding how communities grow and adapt. Two Georgia Tech alumni—Ellen Heath and Cristina Pastore—represent different generations of planners working to shape the future of cities through infrastructure, policy, and community engagement. 

For Ellen Heath, the path into planning began unexpectedly. “Planning isn’t one of those careers people know about when they’re six years old,” Heath said. “I discovered it through a class in physical geography and realized it brought together everything I was interested in.” 

Heath later earned her Master of City Planning from Georgia Tech in 1982 and began her career with the National Park Service at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. The role involved developing planning documents and helping shape how the historic district would interpret and preserve Dr. King’s legacy. 

“It was fascinating work,” Heath said. “We were thinking about the physical spaces but also the stories those places needed to tell.” Over the following decades, Heath worked as a planning consultant across the Southeast, helping communities navigate rapid population growth. 

Few places experienced that change more dramatically than metro Atlanta. “In the early 1990s, Gwinnett County had about 80,000 people,” Heath said. “Today it’s well over half a million. That kind of growth is stunning.”

For Cristina Pastore, a transportation planner and engineer at Kimley-Horn, planning today requires bridging technical systems with community priorities. Pastore earned dual master’s degrees in city planning and civil engineering from Georgia Tech—a combination she says continues to shape her professional perspective. “Planners think about the big picture,” Pastore said. 

“Engineers focus on implementation. Being trained in both helps connect vision to reality.” Much of Pastore’s work focuses on transportation systems and safety planning. In one recent project, her team developed a safety action plan for the city of Clarkston, working closely with refugee and immigrant communities to understand mobility needs. 

“When you bring more voices into the process, you end up with better solutions,” Pastore said. 

Heath agrees that the planning profession has become far more collaborative over time. “Public engagement wasn’t always as central as it is today,” she said. “Now it’s one of the most important parts of the process.” For both planners, the goal of their work remains the same: helping cities grow in ways that strengthen communities. 

“Good growth,” Heath said, “means walkable communities and housing options for people of different ages and incomes.”