Punit Jain Personifies Phil Wirdzek’s Leadership and Wins Top 2025 Award

Each year, the Phil Wirdzek Leadership Award recognizes an outstanding individual who, like I2SL’s late founder Phil Wirdzek, not only advances sustainability and efficiency in labs but also connects and uplifts others in the community. This year’s winner, Punit Jain, has spent more than two decades promoting sustainable lab design and served as an educational leader within the I2SL community.

As a Principal at CannonDesign, Punit has counseled newer lab designers throughout his career, building and supporting communities of practice across firms, cities, and regions while mentoring professionals to become sustainability advocates. Punit holds master’s degrees in both architectural design and construction management from Washington University in St. Louis. Over the course of his career, he has guided the delivery of more than 50 laboratory buildings that integrate energy-efficient systems, water-saving strategies, renewable energy, and occupant wellness.

At this year’s awards ceremony, held October 21 at the I2SL Annual Conference in Dallas, Punit shared that having spent more than two decades learning from Phil, laughing with him and enjoying their interactions, “This award has a very special meaning for me because it is not just professional. It is actually personal.”

Some of Punit’s most notable LEED-certified projects include buildings at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Yale University, Caltech, Eckerd College, and Washington University in St. Louis. He played a key role in aligning the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) LEED® rating system with the unique needs of lab buildings and has been named a LEED Fellow by the USGBC.

Beyond his work at CannonDesign, Punit is a long-time I2SL Board member an active participant on the Labs2Zero Leadership Council, I2SL Nominations Committee, and I2SL Membership Committee, as well as co-chair of the I2SL Awards Committee. Punit helped found the I2SL St. Louis Chapter and serves as President of its Board of Directors.

Punit is known for combining technical depth with approachability to make complex lab design topics engaging and accessible. For more than a decade, he has written and taught a full-day course on Sustainable Strategies for Laboratory Planning, Design, and Operation with other engineers during the I2SL Annual Conference. For nearly 20 years, Punit has contributed his time and expertise to the lab community by serving as a juror for the prestigious Lab Design Newsletter and R&D Magazine’s and now the Scientific Equipment and Furniture Association’s Lab of the Year competition.

In addition to honoring Punit, I2SL gave Shivani Saikar of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, an Emerging Leader in National Labs Award and Chuck Blanchette of Boston Children’s Hospital an Emerging Leader in Healthcare Award. Read more about them and other program and project award winners on the I2SL website.