Suleiman Alhadidi (DDes ’23) is an architect and engineer. He is a researcher at the Material Processes and Systems Group (MaP+S) at the GSD. His practice and research work aims to design and build more efficient, intelligent, and sustainable buildings and cities.
He practiced architecture in Australia, USA, Europe and the Middle East and worked before at several well-known architectural research institutions and practices such as: MIT Media Lab, Melbourne University, RMIT University, SIAL, Coop Himmelblau, BVN, and HASSELL. During 2016–2018, Suleiman took an elected position in the administration council of The Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia. He has served as reviewer and contributor for several architecture journals and conferences such as ACADIA, the Journal of Architectural Education and CAADRIA. He authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on architecture, urban design and technology.
During the last 15 years, Suleiman received more than 25 awards for his research, design and academic achievements. Suleiman was one of the American Australian Association 2018 Scholars. His doctoral research at Harvard focused on robotic buildings with an aim to provide affordable smart buildings that encompasses environmental and spatial design, in particular, he investigated the need for flexible co-working spaces and the understanding of the future of workspace. Being a multidisciplinary advocate of architecture, real estate investment, computation and engineering, he aims to build transformable spaces using robotic technologies and smart methods.
Sulaiman Alothman (DDes ’24) focuses on using data-driven machine learning models to empower the design and manufacturing process in robotic fabrication. His research tackles issues related to material uncertainty in 3d printing of natural materials through machine learning and computer vision. His research— published in ACADIA and ROB|ARCH conferences— is supported by the Material System and Processes (MaP+S) group and sponsored by the Kuwait Foundation of the Advancement of Science (KFAS) and Kuwait University.
Sulaiman is a co-founder of Morphospace studio, a multidisciplinary design studio based in Kuwait. He has coordinated and co-directed the design of several digitally-driven projects and interactive installations in Kuwait. He also co-directed the Architectural Association Visiting School (AAVS), a design-and-built workshop for constructing inhabitable pavilions that are digitally designed and manufactured.
Sulaiman holds a Master in Design Studies (MDes) in Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also holds a Master of Architecture (MArch) in Emergent Technologies and Design from the Architectural Association and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arizona.
Rawan Alsaffar (DDes ’24) is a landscape architect and researcher. Her work lies at the intersection of landscape, infrastructure and human ecology. In particular, her current research explores the role of desalination infrastructure in the production of landscapes in water-scarce regions and its impact on future energy and climate scenarios.
Prior to joining the DDes Program, Rawan worked at multiple landscape architecture offices, such as Stoss Landscape Urbanism and Sasaki. Her professional work has focused on resilience frameworks around the world including the US, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, with an interest in water as a tool of development and a risk factor to coastal and arid environments. Her past research has explored the aesthetic and political concerns of energy and infrastructure through ecologic narratives with work exhibited around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Rawan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture (B.Arch) from Rhode Island School of Design, and a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture (MLA) and Design Studies (MDes ULE) from Harvard Graduate School of Design with a full scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education of Kuwait for academic excellence.
Spyridon Ampanavos (DDes ’22) is an architect and computational designer. Spyridon is exploring ways in which humans and artificial intelligence systems engage in a synergetic design process. He holds a Diploma in Architectural Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece and a Master in Design Studies in Technology with Distinction from Harvard GSD. In his doctoral thesis he used machine learning methods and generative processes to support environmental building design in the early design phase.
Spyridon has worked with Adobe Research to create a new experience for browsing fonts through a machine learning-generated visual organization, and with Autodesk to develop machine learning applications for structural design and real-time energy prediction. He has taught several J-term courses at GSD investigating applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Design and Art, with gentle technical introductions. He has previously worked as an architect in Greece and has taught design and programming at Nuvu Studio innovation school in Cambridge, MA.
Other research interests and skills include Human – Computer Interaction, Data Visualization, Data Science. His research at CGBC involves Augmented Reality for real time visualization, inspection and control of smart buildings’ operation (House Zero).
Aleksandar Bauranov (DDes ’21) is a licensed civil engineer. He explores the relationship between cities, mobility and autonomous vehicles.
Aleksandar was a researcher at NEXTOR, an aviation research institute, where he worked on projects led by the FAA and NASA on the modernization and automation of the National Airspace System. Coupled with his experience in transportation planning and urban design, Aleksandar has a keen perspective on the challenges of integrating autonomous vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles into the urban environment. His other recent projects tackled a variety of interdisciplinary topics in transportation, economics and operations research. Aleksandar regularly publishes papers in scientific journals and presents his research at international conferences. He is skilled in machine learning, data science, and data visualization.
Aleksandar is a founder of Urbanova, a consultancy that specializes in transportation planning and economics. Aleksandar holds a master’s degree in Transportation Engineering from the University of California Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Belgrade.
Ignacio Cardona (DDes ’21) focused his studies on creative methodologies of design research to weave together fragmented urban fabric in the cities of the Global South in order to promote social equity, particularly in areas often characterized by being highly conflictive and violent. The work intends to address issues of urban informality, fragmentation, connectivity and social equity in urban environments that although very dense are nevertheless highly malleable and hold potential for effective intervention.
Ignacio is an Architect (Universidad Simón Bolívar / 1998) and cum-laude Magister of Urban Design (Universidad Metropolitana / 2003) and Founder of AREPA: ARCHITECTURE, ECOLOGY & PARTICIPATION an important Venezuelan think tank that has become a reference on urban phenomena in Latin-American, that has developed several projects with the philosophy to articulate the technical knowledge of design with felt needs of communities.
Before starting the Doctor of Design and Harvard GSD, he developed a career as professor in the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Caracas, Venezuela) for ten years In Studios about architecture and urban design, and as advisor of more than 90 thesis of undergraduate and graduate students. Ignacio also has been Visiting Professor in the Magister of Urban Design at Universidad Metropolitana (Caracas, Venezuela), and in the Bachelor of Science in Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston, USA).
He has presented lectures and papers in seminars and peer-reviewed publications from cities like Barcelona, Boston, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Delft, México City, Nairobi, New York, Puebla, and Santiago; and he has won several awards including a Fellowship in Urban Design for the study of systems of streams in Caracas (IDB, 2002), Honorable Mention in the International competition of urban and social projects (CAF, 2012), Finalist in the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (UCLG,2016), the EB1 Visa of Extraordinaries Abilities (USCIS, 2017), and the New York City Summer Fellowship of the IPA Institute of Public Architecture (IPA, 2018).
Elence Xinzhu Chen (DDes ’24) specializes in building technology, data science, and engineering. With the aim of creating sustainable buildings and cities, her primary research integrates building performance simulation and system control with machine learning algorithms. Elence’s research interests include model predictive control via data-driven approach, deep learning-based control optimization, machine learning, net-zero energy/carbon building design optimization, computational fluid dynamics, natural ventilation, co-simulation of building energy, control systems and indoor environment.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Project and Facilities Management from National University of Singapore, a Master in Design Studies with concentration in Energy and Environment from Harvard GSD. Her master’s thesis investigated the use of Phase Change Materials in heating buildings to reduce building energy consumption through a passive manner and was awarded the Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology and Sustainability in 2020. Her papers have been published in Smart and Sustainable Cities and Buildings and presented in the International Conference of the Architectural Science Association.
Elence interned at Transsolar Germany, Building and Construction Authority Singapore and Arup Shanghai office. She has been involved in multiple national and international projects that aim to design ultra-efficient buildings with less dependence on machines and energy.
Portfolio: https://www.elencechen.com
Yonghui Chen (DDes ’23) has a background in urban planning and urban design. Focusing on urban conservation theory and practice, his doctoral research explored historic conservation strategies applicable to contemporary cities with particular interest in China. Prior to entering the DDes program, he held a Master’s Degree in Design Studies concentrating in Critical Conservation at the Harvard GSD. He is interested in using spatial analytics methods to study urban conservation and urban design. During the past few years, he was granted the Outstanding Student Award of the Year in 2017 by the Eris Development Center and Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis. He worked as a research assistant at the GSD City Form Lab, translating Andres Sevtsuk’s Urban Network Analysis: Tools for Modeling Pedestrian and Bicycle Trips in Cities which has been published in China. He taught as a teaching fellow in the GSD Urban Planning Department for 2019 Fall VIS 2129 Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment, and 2020 Spring SES 5211 Cities by Design.
Zhanliang Chen (DDes ’24) urban artist. Zhan’s research focuses on the conservation of timber structural historical buildings of China. Specifically, it concerns the various methods, organizations, histories, and manners of China’s architectural conservation to resist the obsolesce of traditional wooden construction with regard to its physical characteristics. Born and raised in a family of architects and traditional arch-crafts persons, he received architectural training in both modern building and traditional Chinese craftsmanship before college. Zhan chose conservation of Chinese traditional vernacular architecture as a research topic at Zhejiang University, China, where he earned his M.Arch degree. He took part in village heritage conservation projects, including wooden clan temples, residences, stone roads and bridges, and general renovation design of Liruo village, Zhejiang, China. His master thesis was a study on facade renovation of buildings in traditional towns and villages in China, for which he had spent two years doing field research in 35 separate villages and towns.
Painting wall pieces (sometimes canvases) with spray cans(legally) since 2008, Zhan travels around the world creating murals in urban environments. Combining the Chinese building and calligraphy with graffiti murals, he develops his flow of art and co-works with commercial brands and art institutes. He and his crew have been hosting art and graffiti events, exhibitions and lectures around China since 2014.
Somayeh Chitchian (DDes ’24) is an architect and urban researcher. Her research focuses on the extended corridors of migratory circulation and uses a logistical lens as both a material and theoretical tool towards a respatialized approach to migration research’s inherent methodological nationalism. Somayeh’s work lies at the intersection of critical urban theory, migration research, border- and logistics studies, and is guided by de/postcolonial thought, critical race theory, and radical cartography as its overarching framework of analysis. The central question guiding her doctoral work is: How does the contemporary logistics space (re)produce its political figure on-the-move—i.e., “the migrant”?
Somayeh is a trained architect (B.Arch and M.Arch) from Delft University of Technology in the Netherland and holds a Master in Design Studies degree (MDes) in Critical Conservation (with distinction) from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her masters thesis research “Middle Eastern Immigration Landscape in America” won Harvard ESRI Development Center’s Student of the Year Award in 2014. During her years in the Netherlands, she practiced as an architect at several firms in both Amsterdam and The Hague, where she collaborated on various residential and cultural projects, as well as the design of advanced building envelopes. At Harvard, she has held various appointments as teaching and research fellow.
From 2015-2019, she held a doctoral fellow position at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany, working towards her doctoral dissertation.
Sang-Yong Cho (DDes ’23) is a researcher and designer bridging the domains of landscape architecture, urban design, planning and technology. His research focused on the near and long-term transition of energy, water, and carbon nexus between urban and industrial systems. He incorporates material flow accounting methods and urban metabolism principles to test the feasibility of integrating energy, water, waste flow between urban and the industrial sectors by examining emerging technologies. In addition, Sang and researchers at Samsung Medical Center are studying the association between breast cancer and air quality in Seoul, South Korea.
Sang is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Planning at the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning where he teaches landscape architecture and planning studios and seminars. Additionally, he is working with researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to study respiratory outcome and urban features incorporating innovative data-driven technologies and community engagement protocols to increase environmental health literacy outcomes for underserved communities.
He has practiced as a landscape planner in Boston; and was a former research fellow at Ulsan Research Institute, South Korea. He received his Master of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Mike Chieffalo (DDes ’21) is an architect and former planning commissioner. His research question broadly engages the role(s) of nonhuman animals in histories and theories of urbanization, specifically using livestock as a lens to critique a pervasive anthropocentrism in Western urban theory.
Holding a B.Arch from Roger Williams University, a post-professional M.S. in architecture from Columbia University, and an Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology focused MDes (Distinction) from Harvard, Mike has extensive academic training in architecture and urban social sciences. He is also an experienced architect in practice, with high-level involvement across many project types. In addition to his professional experience, Mike served as a Planning Commissioner in Norwalk, CT from 2009-2012. He was previously a Research Assistant in the Urban Theory Lab GSD; Teaching Fellow in Neil Brenner’s History and Theory of Urban Interventions course; and Teaching Assistant in the inaugural design studio for the Master in Design Engineering program at Harvard. He currently sits on the editorial board at New Geographies Journal; serves as an adjunct faculty at Roger Williams University; and is co-editor of New Geographies 10: Fallow.
Daniel Daou (DDes ’21) is an associate professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). His thesis, Synthetic Ecology, explores the relationship between the design, ecological, and political imaginaries from 1972 onward and the ways in which the ecological metaphor can help reconsider an emancipatory project for architecture today.
Daniel holds a Licentiate in Architecture from the Universidad Iberoamericana graduating top of his class in 2006. He was an exchange student at the M.Arch II program at SCIArc, and, in 2011, with the support from the Fulbright program, the Brockman Foundation, and the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology, he obtained a Master in Science of Architecture Studies and a Master in City Planning with an Urban Design Certificate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was also a ‘Young Artist’ fellow by the Mexican National Fund for Culture and Arts from 2005 to 2006.
Prior to obtaining his graduate degrees, he worked as Unit Chief at the Department of Urban Development and Housing in Mexico City, studio instructor at the Universidad Iberoamericana, and junior designer at Fernado Romero/FREE, Enrique Norten/TEN Arquitectos, and Castillo+Springall/Arq911.
Daniel has been involved in over 40 projects spanning a dozen countries. He has been research assistant, teaching fellow, and lecturer at MIT and the GSD; assistant professor at the Boston Architectural College (BAC) and Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT), and guest reviewer at the GSD, MIT, WIT, BAC, UPenn, Northeastern University, and the Danish Academy of the Arts.
At Harvard, he has been a Fellow of the Energy Council at the Center for the Environment and a member of New Geographies’ editorial board from 2013 to 2018 where he co-edited the ninth volume of the journal. Over the last decade, he has contributed over 60 essays on design for several magazines and journals including Domus Mexico, Arquine, Thresholds, Lunch, and New Geographies.
Daniel is a sci-fi fan, an avid traveler, and a half decent cook.
Bert De Jonghe‘s (DDes ’25) dissertation combines a granular understanding of the spatial implications of multinational occupation in the high-Arctic archipelago of Svalbard with a critique of the Norwegian nationalism underlying the Svalbard project.
Bert is the founder of Transpolar Studio, a design practice specializing in landscape architecture, urbanism, and design research in the Arctic regions. He has worked as a designer at a range of landscape architecture practices worldwide, including in Belgium, South Africa, and Norway, and as a research assistant at Harvard GSD’s Office for Urbanization.
He’s been fortunate to serve in several teaching positions, including University Lecturer at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø and Teaching Fellow, Teaching Assistant, and Research Tutor roles at Harvard GSD. He has been invited to be a critic/reviewer in numerous design courses and studios, including at Harvard GSD, Northeastern University, and Yale University.
He holds degrees from Harvard GSD (Master in Design Studies), the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (Master of Landscape Architecture), and the School of Arts in Ghent (Bachelor of Landscape and Garden Architecture).
Aisha S. Densmore-Bey (DDes ’23)has benefited from over twenty years of professional experience in the field of architecture. She has written articles and has organized or been a panelist at various symposia discussing architecture and design, including Build Boston/ABx and the national American Institute of Architects Convention. Aisha runs a Boston based eponymous creative office that specializes in architecture, interiors, graphic design, film, and art.
Aisha is a recipient of the American Institute of Architects Associates Award, and has been featured in Architect Magazine, ArchDaily, Design Bureau, Apartment Therapy, and the Lifework Blog of iconic furniture company, Herman Miller.
Developing and encouraging the next generation of designers, Aisha founded Future Prep 101: How to Prepare Teens for Design Careers™, a half-day seminar which exposes high school students and their parents to multiple design disciplines.
Aisha is author and illustrator of the children’s book Who Made My Stuff? Miles Learns About Design, and writer, producer, director of the award-winning film short ROOM. She is also co-founder of the collaborative open screening film platform 100 Minutes. Aisha is also a burgeoning playwright. Her first one act play, FLIP, was part of the 2022 MIT Playwrights Lab.
Aisha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Florida A&M University, and a Master Of Science in Strategic Design and Management from the Parsons School of Design. While at Harvard, Aisha’s research explores how artists and arts-based planning in communities of color can create a framework for healthier and equitable neighborhoods in major US cities.
[email protected]
www.aishadb.com
First and foremost an architect and designer, Fu Yun‘s (March ’15, DDes ’20) scholarly interests are diverse and international in scope, but focused on persistent classes of design problems pertinent in contemporary practice. His doctoral dissertation, Schemas in a Design Problem: Building in Seismic Regions Diversely Considered, deconstructs the conventional view of the earthquake as a purely objective and mechanical problem requiring only rote resolutions, reframing it as a design problem in which diverse and often contradictory conceptual and methodological approaches co-exists. Recent and on-going projects include Worklive: The Joys and Accommodations of Working from Home, supported by the GSD Research Grant; The Architecture of Loitering, a study of different ways to do nothing and its design accouterments; and a series of housing projects exploring evolving notions of dwelling.
Yun’s work has been recognized and supported by the Rome Prize in Architecture from the British School at Rome, the Sinclair Kennedy Traveling Fellowship, and the Confucius Fellowship at Peking University. Yun co-authored the forthcoming book Korean Modern: The Matter of Identity (Birkhauser, 2021) and The Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Palava City: A Brief Account and Evaluation (Harvard GSD, 2017), and was part of the research team behind China’s Urban Communities: Concepts, Contexts, and Well-Being (Birkhauser, 2016) and Urban Intensities: Contemporary Housing Types and Territories (Birkhauser, 2014).
Yun graduated with a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from UNSW Sydney with the Australian Institute of Architects Undergraduate Design Medal in 2010, a Master in Architecture from the GSD with the American Institute of Architects Henry Adams Medal in 2015, and after collaborating with Foster+Partners in London and ZAO/standardarchtiecure in Beijing, established an independent practice with Guo Wenting in 2019. Yun joined the GSD faculty in 2018, where he co-developed the current iteration of Elements of Urban Design, the advanced core studio, and teaches the course on Modern Housing
Boya Guo (DDes ’22) is a cultural geographer and urban historian with an interest in how cultural powers shape the built environment and vice versa. Her doctoral thesis focuses on the power interplay and conflicts between UNESCO’s Outstanding Universal Values, Chinese nationalistic discourses and practices of heritage, and local responses, to draw conclusions about underlying power dynamics of contemporary China’s use of heritage and history. In line with her research, she is working on a book project about Qianlong Beijing Plan and the history of cartography in Qing Dynasty of China.
Boya firmly believes the value of cross-disciplinary dialogue and has been actively engaged with China-related academic activities within and beyond GSD. Her research has been widely supported by Weatherhead Center, Asia Center, Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Ash Center China Programs, Frederick Sheldon Fellowship, and Chinese Scholarship Council, etc. Her works have been presented at Tianjin University, Central Academy of Fine Arts in China, the bi-annual conference of Association of Critical Heritage Studies in 2020, annual conference of Royal Geographical Society with IBG in 2018, Royal College of Art Conference “Spatialised Governmentality: China and the Global Context” in 2018, Goethe-Institut Beijing “Whatever Works, Whatever It Takes” symposium in 2019. She also co-organized the Harvard DDes 2018 conference “[RE]FORM” in which nine worldwide prominent scholars repositioned the discourse of urban form within contemporary urban theory. Besides doing research, Boya has been practicing as an urban planner and consultant for many conservation projects in China. Boya holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in urban planning and a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from Peking University, and a Master in Design Studies degree from the Harvard GSD in the area of Critical Conservation.
Jung Min (Ellie) Han (DDes ’22) is a researcher who seeks strategies for architectural sustainability and energy-efficient building design. She innovates on interoperable building performance simulation (BPS) software for architects to use in nimble building performance analysis and flexible early-stage design decision making. Her doctoral research, advised by Prof. Ali Malkawi, focuses on the geometric properties of architecture and exchangeable data formats for evaluating building designs. Artificial intelligence and deep learning are her primary methodologies for advancing the feasibility of BPS software.
Han holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Korea National University of Arts, a Master of Science in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and a Master of Design Studies with a concentration in Energy and Environments from Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). Before starting the DDes program, she worked at the Delos Labs as a building science intern and the Brooks+Scarpa Architects as an intern architect. She has worked at the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities as a research assistant since 2017. As a student and researcher, she developed several BPS tools to help architects with sustainable design decision-making on topics ranging from building to urban scales of implementation. Along with her academic engagement, her journal and conference papers on building performance and simulation have been published and presented at conferences sponsored by the International Building Performance Simulation Association and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers.
Vanessa Harden (DDes ’25) is an artist and designer focused on creating thought-provoking experiences and installations in the built environment. Her research focuses on how mycorrhizal networks facilitate plant connectivity in cities. She is developing tools and methodologies to help support the fitness and functions of urban ecosystems by incorporating healthy soil fungal communities and networks into the design of urban environments.She is the founder of Subversive Gardener , an IF Concept Award winning design project turned non-profit organization that focuses on environmental education, design exploration, and public intervention connected to the guerrilla gardening subculture. Vanessa is also the founder of Wild Flag Studios , a design studio that creates interactive sculptures and produces art installations for clients worldwide.
Vanessa and her work have been featured in publications including Vogue, The Guardian, Wired, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Vice, and others, and on networks including CNN and the BBC. Her work has been shown in multiple exhibitions including at the Venice Biennale, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Royal Institution. She has delivered numerous talks about her work, addressing how public interventions act as vehicles that draw awareness to timely social and environmental challenges.
She holds three art and design centric degrees from the Ontario College of Art & Design (BDes), MIT Media Lab and the Royal College of Art (MA RCA).
Vaughn Horn (DDes ’21) holds an architectural license in his native state of California and in his new home, Massachusetts. His dissertation research focused on applying architectural tools to improve substandard housing through an examination of cultural moments in the U.S. public housing program, from its origins in the Great Depression to present day. His other research interests and pursuits in academia, the nonprofit sector, and in the architectural practice span 20 years on an array of project types in which he has served in academic administration roles and mid-senior level management roles.
Xiaokai Huang’s (DDes ’20) research concerns the field of real estate development and urban development under China’s transitioning economy. In particular, he explores the role of state-owned enterprises in the real estate development sector and their impacts on urban development from the perspective of political economy. Related field covers real estate finance.
Xiaokai’s research was widely granted by the Harvard Real Estate Study Grant, Harvard Asia Center and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He is also a FIABCI Scholar awarded by the FIABCI foundation, which aims to support students in international real estate study.
Prior to joining the DDes program, Xiaokai worked at Sasaki Associates as an urban planner with the responsibility of developing strategic urban and regional planning for municipal governments and some of the largest private developers in China. From 2015 – 2016, Xiaokai, as a research consultant at a consulting practice, worked closely with a municipal government in Southern China and its Development and Reform Commission, and co-developed a comprehensive report regarding development potentials of 24 towns in the city. Xiaokai is now working as an intern consultant for the Development Research Centre of State Council, P.R.China, with main focus on the cross-border e-commerce in China and its potential impact on China’s economy.
Kristen Hunter (DDes ’23) is a real estate development strategist and scholar specializing in complex urban projects. Her research explored the efficacy of Massachusetts’ Community Preservation Act-funded subsidies in expanding affordable housing options in municipalities across the spectrum of fiscal and institutional capacities, socioeconomic profiles, land-use regulatory environments, and real estate market dynamics.
An experienced development manager and LEED AP, Kristen currently provides strategic consulting for complex urban development projects in domestic and overseas markets. She authored a series of case studies on best practices in the delivery of federal construction projects for the U.S. General Services Administration Public Buildings Service, where she served as an Assistant Instructor at the agency’s semi-annual academy.
Since 2010 she has taught Real Estate Development and Finance, as well as Public and Private Development, at the GSD. She was the recipient of the 2012‑2013 GSD Student Forum Teaching Fellow Award. As an extension of her teaching, Kristen advises student teams participating in a variety of regional and national urban development competitions.
Kristen received a master’s degree with distinction in Real Estate and Project Management from the GSD, earning the Gerald M. McCue Medal for highest overall academic record and the Ferdinand Colleredo‑Mansfeld Prize for superior achievement in real estate studies. She also holds an M.A. in Medieval Chinese History from Cornell University and an A.B. cum laude in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.
Daniel Ibanez
(DDes ’21) is a Spanish practicing architect and urbanist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. During his time at the Harvard GSD he was a research fellow at the Harvard Office for Urbanization and the Urban Theory Lab. Daniel’s overall research critically seeks to frame the design disciplines in relation to broader socio-ecological interdependencies through cross-disciplinary studies in the field of urban metabolism. As part of his academic efforts, Daniel has organized conferences on Projective Views on Urban Metabolism (Harvard GSD, 2014) and Wood Urbanism: From the Molecular to the Territorial (Harvard GSD, 2014) and Heliomorphism (Harvard GSD, 2016). He is author/editor three book publications: New Geographies 06: Grounding Metabolism (HUP, 2014); Third Coast Atlas (forthcoming Actar, 2015); and Wood Urbanism: From Molecular to Territorial (forthcoming, Actar, 2018). His articles have been featured in the Harvard Design Magazine, PLOT, urbanNext, Mies Crown Hall Americas publication, Ediciones ARQ, or LIGA DF.
Additionally, Daniel holds two other academic affiliations. He is an assistant professor at Rhode Island School of Design in the School of Architecture, and co-director of the Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings (MAEB), at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalunya in Valldaura, Barcelona. Since 2017, Daniel has been advising the World Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank in the housing and urban development projects in Latin America.
He is co-founder and director of the design firm Margen-Lab, a transcalar targeted office invested in the developing more ecologically powerful and materially exuberant architecture and urban design with projects in USA, Spain, Chile, and China. Margen-Lab has been awarded first prizes in national and international competitions, and it has exhibited its work on design venues such as the Biennale di Venezia 2012, the Oslo Architectural Triennale 2013, or the Design Biennial Boston among others.
Daniel received his Masters of Architecture from Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid in 2007 with honors. Also, he holds a post-professional Master in Advanced Architecture from IAAC with distinction. In 2012, he completed a Masters in Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape and Ecology with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Daniel’s grants for academic research include Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies, Fundación La Caixa Fulbright Fellowship, Real Colegio Harvard Complutense Scholarship and the Harvard GSD Dimitris Pikionis Award, Penny White Research Scholarship and the Dean´s Merit Award.
Esesua Ikpefan’s (DDes ’25) doctoral research highlights spatial dimensions of inequality and marginalization in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work sees the built environment as both an informer of conflict and identity, as well as a reflection of these issues. Her research focuses on the intersection between heritage, identity, inequality, and colonial legacies in Nigeria’s urban centers. This work assesses how claims of ownership and authenticity are performed in contestation over limited urban space in Lagos. It confronts popular hierarchies of place and persons in Nigeria, questioning who a given society sees as valuable enough to have a right to urban space, and why.
Her past research in the Master in Design Studies in Critical Conservation program at the GSD, examines colonial, religious, and cultural practices that together have form contemporary governmental and societal biases towards Nigeria’s urban poor. This research focuses on how heritage and narratives of history and place, and its built environment, can become tools for urban inequality and exclusion.
Esesua has a B.F.A. in Environmental and Interior Design form Syracuse University. She held teaching fellowships at the GSD Urban Planning and Design Department, the Department of History of Art and Architecture, and the General Education Department at Harvard University. She was also a Research Assistant at the Just City Lab, and served as the Logistics Committee Lead for the 2019 Harvard GSD Black in Design Conference.
Gorata Kgafela ‘s (DDes ’25) research explores the influence of the geopolitical landscape on the motivators and behavior patterns observed in participatory practice and policy formulation. Emphasis is placed on local knowledge systems as a keystone for innovation of tools for civic engagement. Specifically, her research explores the potential of gamification for an imagined spatial production and its potential as an emancipatory tool for the civic participatory process.
Gorata holds an MBA from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). She is trained as an Architect, qualifying with both an MArch and a Post Professional MArch in Computing from the University of Miami where she graduated valedictorian and was recipient of the Henry Adams Medal for Excellence in Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. Gorata received her B.A. in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis where she graduated Magna Cum Laude.
With over 18 years as a practicing Architect and as President of Architects Association of Botswana, Gorata is a highly accomplished and multifaceted professional with expertise in architecture, design, real estate, and global business. Her teaching experience includes teaching fellowships at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Urban Economics for Planners and Policymakers (SES5495), Cases in Contemporary Construction (SCI6230), Construction Systems (SCI6123), and as a graduate teaching assistant at University of Miami.
Elitza Koeva (DDes ’24) is pursuing a Doctor of Design Studies Degree at Harvard Graduate School of Design, with a secondary field in Critical Media Practice (CMP). Her practice plays with temporality, the impermanence of tangible and intangible nature, and the emerging in urban contexts interferences and resonances between sound and space and “cross-species sociality” (Haraway). Elitza’s aim is to understand how artistic practices engender people’s engagement, critical awareness, and participatory responses to digitally-mediated environments, reconciling the self and the social at the level of city construction and subjectivity, where a non-unitary subjectivity arises. Elitza is a co-editor of New Geographies 14, a special issue on assemblages and entanglements, and a researcher at Harvard Design Magazine. She is also a Media & Design Fellow at the BOK Center, Harvard University.
Elitza holds a Master’s Degree in Media & Cultural Studies Studies from the University of Tokyo. She has practiced at various art & architectural firms and institutions: OMA/AMO, Arata Isozaki & Associates, MAD Architects, MOT (Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), and Junya Ishigami. At MOT, she worked on Oscar Niemeyer and Yoko Ono exhibitions. While at OMA/AMO, she was part of the exhibition team of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition/Fundamentals (Venice Architecture Biennale, 2014). Prior to Harvard, Elitza was a research fellow at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD), ETH Zürich. At ETH, she explored the convergence of art, philosophy, quantum physics, and coding. Elitza is a recipient of the Monbusho scholarship from the Japanese Government, the Fulbright and Thanks to Scandinavia grants, as well as of the ETH CAAD 2017 research fellowship.
http://elitzakoeva.com
Yihao Li (DDes ’24) is a doctoral candidate with a focus on urban planning and infrastructure finance. Passionate about making urbanization work for developing countries, his dissertation investigates how China’s development banks, construction companies, and developers are reshaping the urban landscape in Sri Lanka in the form of mega transport infrastructure and urban development projects. He is a recipient of Harvard University Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship in 2021-22. His research is also supported by Harvard Fairbank Center, Harvard Asia Center, Harvard Ash Center, and GSD. Before graduate school, he worked as a land policy consultant at the World Bank, researching comparative land and urbanization policy. Yihao also worked as a research associate at Harvard Business School. Yihao has a master’s in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government with a concentration on international development, and graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University with a B.A. in international relations and economics.
Jingping Liu (DDes ’21) focuses on the community and housing issues in P. R. China, especially the evolution and retrofit of work-unit (Danwei) communities that were built during 1950s to 1980s. She aims to figure out reasonable and applicable retrofit strategies for the work-unit community in the country by studying the morphology evolution process of specific work-unit community cases in Nanjing, with the self-organizing theory as a supporting theory and typo-morphology approach as the primary methodology.
Before coming to Harvard, she was a graduate student at Southeast University, P. R. China. There she participated in a “Twelfth Five-Year” National Key Technology R&D Program of China, and she was mainly responsible for the key technologies of community planning in areas with dense watercourses. She got her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Zhengzhou University and Master of Architecture degree from Southeast University in China.
Jingping has been awarded a scholarship from China Scholarship Council (CSC) to pursue her doctoral study at Harvard. She has coauthored the paper Quantitative Study on the Evolution Trend and Driving Factors of Typical Rural Spatial Morphology in Southern Jiangsu Province, China, which was published in Sustainability in 2018. She made an oral presentation in the Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) Conferences 2016, Seoul. She participated in the Venice Biennale Sharing & Regeneration Exhibition 2016 with the team work Living Construction.
Hsuan Lo (DDes ’24) is an urban policy analyst. He taught as a teaching fellow for Real Estate Finance and Development and Public and Private Development. Hsuan holds dual master’s degrees in Urban Planning from the University of Manchester and a Bachelor’s in Real Estate and Built Environment from National Taipei University. He also received a data science certificate from MIT’s Applied Data Science Program.
During the last 5 years, Hsuan published 6 journal and conference papers on urban renewal, housing policy, and social justice topics. His ongoing research investigates the impacts of property tax policies on housing affordability from Western to Eastern countries using Time Series, DID, and semi-structured interviews. His dissertation is by far supported by Fairbank Center and Harvard Real Estate Research Grant. The proposal was also presented at the 5th World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC) and Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) 62nd Annual Conference.
Previously, Hsuan interned at UN-Habitat, participating in Stockholm+50 and World Urban Forum and analyzing urbanization-related issues across the continents. Before Harvard, he also practiced as a researcher at the Ministry of Science and Technology and as an engineer at Taipei City Government. He founded his column in CommonWealth Magazine in 2015, continuously seeking dialogue with the public and resolutions for housing justice.
Mojdeh Mahdavi (DDes ’22) is an urban designer and registered architect. At the Harvard Graduate School of Design her work was supported by GSD Dean’s merit, Iranian Scholarship Foundation and P.E.O Foundation. At the GSD, she was also the co-editor of the twelfth volume of the DDes annual journal, New Geographies 12: Commons. Mojdeh received a research-based (mention recherche) Post-Master degree in Architecture and Urbanism from École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris LaVillette, ENSAPLV, and a Master in Landscape Architecture from University of Tehran where she was graduated with honors.
Before the GSD, Mojdeh practiced urban and architectural design in Paris, Tehran, and Almaty in well-established firms as well as experimental design groups. Her work has been presented in conferences in Paris, Tehran, Zurich, and Montreal. During several years of professional and academic experience, she has gained extensive knowledge in civic engagement, public participation and community empowerment in the process of urban development. Since her collaboration with Tehran Urban Innovation Center in 2016, where she is currently a partner, she has examined the efficiency of a combination of off-line and online methods as well as digital technologies in the complex process of participation. Currently, as a Bloomberg fellow in City Leadership Initiative, she uses this practical knowledge in community engagement and ICT and urban intelligence engendered opportunities in helping Syracuse’s office of Accountability, Performance and Innovation to devise a socially-conscious, inclusive, and economically-responsive smart city plan.
Mojdeh’s research at the GSD investigates how spatialized urban intelligence and emerging digital technologies change the nature and structure of urban governance and public interfaces. She looks at the ways through which urban governments prepare for implementation of smart infrastructure and smart technologies, create new growth-coalitions and revise their relationships with citizens. Mojdeh’s broader research engages with the evolving relationships between urbanization, politics, urban governance, urban intelligence and their effects on sociopolitical capacity of the society.
Miguel Lopez Melendez’s (DDes ’21) research challenges the reduction of the philosophical term “autonomy” within architecture to a disciplinary detachment rather than a cultural engagement. It argues that the impulsive interpretation of autonomy overemphasized the history of architecture and relegated the history of autonomy amid the social and cultural unrest of the second half of the twentieth century. His thesis, titled Autonomy and Urbanism, aspires to provide a cultural reflection on design. It counters the assumptions of architecture on autonomy through the evidence of its historical and cultural formation. It studies the philosophical, political, aesthetic, and architectural progression of the term to formulate the theoretical and practical framework of a latent urban interpretation exposed by the current historical conditions but whose origins date back to the eighteenth century.
Miguel studied architecture at Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico) and Urban Design at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He worked at FR-EE Enterprise, TEN Arquitectos, and Tecnologico de Monterrey as Assistant Professor. At Harvard, he has worked on research projects such as the Housing Surplus Project (Brazil), Topaz Project (Mexico), and A Sustainable Future for EXUMA (Bahamas). Besides working on his doctoral research, he works as Research Assistant for the former Dean Mohsen Mostafavi.
Nusrat Jahan Mim (DDes ’24) trained as an Architect from Bangladesh. Her research focuses on studying the socio-economic politics embedded in resource-constrained contexts of the Global South and designing novel and creative spaces to facilitate inclusive and democratic participation of the marginalized communities there. Her work draws upon cutting-edge critical literature in Urban Design Politics around Faith and Informalities and addresses the contemporary struggles of marginalized communities within the globalized projects of modernization, urbanization, and digitization. Her projects have been published in ACM SIGCHI ’22, ’21, ‘20(Best Paper Honorable Mention Awards) ‘15, Religions ‘20, Peer Production ’18, Interaction ’22,’21, and DIS ’19. She also co-authored a book chapter with Prof Rahul Mehrotra on the Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, which appeared in Informal Settlement in the Global South from Routledge.
Nusrat received the Aga Khan Endowment Fund in the 2022-23 academic year. She served as a fellow at Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative and as a Graduate Student Associate at the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard. She completed her M.Arch from Syracuse School of Architecture with the A.I.A Henry Adams Medal for achieving the highest academic rank. She received her B.Arch from BUET, Bangladesh and was a lecturer there. She has received several international awards, including Lafarge-Holcim, Laka International: Architecture that Reacts, and HDR Graduate Student Award in Architecture and Urban Design, among others.
Jeffrey S Nesbit (DDes ’20) is an architect and urbanist. He is founding director of the experimental design group Haecceitas Studio and was a research fellow in the Office for Urbanization, directed by Charles Waldheim and Mohsen Mostafavi. His research focuses on processes of urbanization, infrastructure, and the evolution of the defense landscape. Currently, Nesbit is studying the 20th century spaceport complex at the intersection of architecture and aerospace history. He has written a number of journal articles and book chapters on infrastructure and urbanization and is co-editor of Chasing the City: Models for Extra-Urban Investigations (Routledge, 2018), Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment (Routledge, 2019), and currently working on the forth-coming New Geographies 11 Extraterrestrial (Actar, 2019). Nesbit previously taught architecture and urban design as an Assistant Professor, along with leading a number of studios and theory seminars at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and Texas Tech University. He received his Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Texas Tech University.
Xuanyi Nie’s (DDes ’21) dissertation explores healthcare economy in cities, and the political economy behind the making of medical cities. Having multiple journal articles under review, his research concerns medical and economic geography, urbanization and infectious diseases, and the impacts of health policies on urban governance and development. His research projects have been granted by the Harvard GSD, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Fairbank Center, Harvard Asia Center, and Harvard China Health Partnership. Xuanyi is also a FIABCI scholar awarded by the FIABCI Scholarship Foundation for International Real Estate Studies. He holds a professional certificate in municipal finance awarded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and is a member of the China Healthcare Architecture Association (CHHA) in Beijing.
Xuanyi’s research has benefited from various academic and professional experiences. He is currently a research fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focusing on the financing and policies for developing healthcare facilities in China. He has served as a teaching fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for classes on both urban history and theory, and architectural tectonics. Xuanyi recently worked at the UN-Habitat, engaged in various projects including Strategic Urban Project Financing, International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial planning COVID-19 Response, and COVID-19 and Learnings for Urban Planners. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Xuanyi has worked at KPF, Kengo Kuma, New York Department of City Planning, and NBBJ. He has been invited to present at academic institutions including Peking University, Nanjing University, Tongji University, and Rutgers University. Xuanyi received his Master of Architecture Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Bachelor of Architectural Studies from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Katarina Richter-Lunn (DDes ’25) is an architectural designer and researcher. Her research, found at the intersection of design, psychology, and neuroscience, aims to promote well-being through our environment.
By translating methods of traditional behavioral therapy, her research seeks to demonstrate how human, machine, and spatial interactions can be leveraged via AI algorithms to propose more seamless and intuitive solutions to addressing mental health. As part of this work, she explores how neurological and physiological cues can give insight to one’s behavior, and in turn support cognitive processes through the lens of materiality, computational design, affective computing, and social robotics.
Alongside her doctoral studies at Harvard, Katarina is a research assistant with the Materials Processes and Systems Group (MaP+S) at the GSD, and a member of the Aizenberg Lab at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
Katarina holds a Master in Design Technology (M.Des) from Harvard GSD and a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with a minor in Sustainable Environments. She has worked at leading architecture firms including Snøhetta, Arup, IwamottoScott, and most recently Gehry Partners, where she worked as a project designer. Katarina is a 2022 recipient of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.
Adam Royalty (DDes ’24) develops programs that impact social systems through human centered design. With training as a learning designer, Adam is particularly interested in how individuals, organizations, and communities transfer knowledge into novel settings. His dissertation investigates how public and private sector teams collaborate while developing sustainable energy programs.
Prior to the GSD Adam founded the Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio. The Design Studio hosts numerous interdisciplinary design courses at Columbia University, including Design for Social Innovation. The DFSI course teaches teams of students how to use human centered design to help social impact organizations advance an innovation project. Past organizations include Harlem Children’s Zone, Witness.org, and the Aga Khan Foundation in Kyrgyzstan.
Adam’s research journey began at the Stanford University d.school. There he started the first research initiative with the goal of measuring the impact of the institute’s programs. Using a mixed method approach, Adam developed and implemented quantitative and qualitative assessments of students’ design practice. This work led to over a dozen chapter and journal publications.
Outside of his work in academia, Adam consults with a range of companies and foundations to promote organizational change through human centered design.
Adam’s academic background includes a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California Berkeley and an M.A. in Learning, Design, & Technology from Stanford University.
Andreina Seijas (DDes ’20) studies the urban night. In other words, how cities can become safer, more inclusive and productive by creating quality spaces for work and leisure not only during the day, but also at night. Her doctoral research analyzes how day-night dynamics are changing over time, and the institutional arrangements—such as the emerging role of ‘night mayors’—that cities have to manage and shape nocturnal environments. By performing a comparative analysis of three systems of nocturnal governance—the laws and institutional arrangements to oversee night-time activity in Amsterdam, London and New York—her work hopes to shed light on the emerging field of night-time planning and policy.
Andreina is a Venezuelan communications professional and public policy analyst with more than 10 years of experience managing communication and policy strategies for the public, private and non-profit sectors. She has a Communications degree from Universidad Católica Andres Bello (Caracas), an MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics, and a Master in Public Administration and Non-Profit management from New York University.
Before entering the DDes program, Andreina worked as a consultant for the Housing and Urban Development Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington D.C. Previously, Andreina was the Information Manager for the Mayor’s Office of the Chacao Municipality in Caracas, worked as Policy Associate at Americas Society/ Council of the Americas and Editorial Associate for policy journal Americas Quarterly in New York City.
Andreina has presented lectures and papers in seminars and international conferences organized by McGill University, Leiden University, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), the Responsible Hospitality Institute (RHI) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Her work was also featured at the XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Valparaíso, Chile. Watch her TEDx talk and learn more about her research project at www.andreinaseijas.com.
Annie Simpson (DDes ’25) is an artist and works via sight-/site-based investigation to make videos, photographs, and essays. For the 2024-2025 academic year, Simpson was a Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Doctoral Fellow. Her dissertation assesses ‘the planetary’ in spatial research through the unique, if curiously unaddressed, aesthetic opportunities provided by it. These openings offer a way to unsettle the dominant visual paradigm of planetary urbanization through essay and film across diverse subjects of the ecological uncanny in Georgia: feral dogs, pine plantations, river snakes, military installations, (the list goes on). Simpson’s practice grounds itself in the Southeastern United States and considers how the region plays a vital role in exporting land and labor relations and material practices globally, vis-a-vis the logics of the plantation. Methodologically, she works by getting lost alongside canine companion-collaborator, Boudreaux.
Simpson is an ongoing contributor to Port Futures & Social Logistics. She received an MFA from the University of Georgia and a BFA from UNC-Chapel Hill; her work has been exhibited internationally and she regularly publishes enviro-spatial criticism and exhibition reviews. In her free time, she builds canoes & rides horses.
Julia Smachylo (DDes ’21) is an urban designer as well as a registered urban planner in Canada and the United Kingdom. She was a member of the Urban Theory Lab, a Canada Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and earned secondary degree in Critical Media Practice, which integrates media production into her academic work. Her research responds to an increased awareness and shift towards valuing natural capital in research and policy, as well as the growing influence of non-state actors such as environmental organizations, landowners, and the private sector in shaping landscapes in response to climate change. Using film as a method of investigation, her recent work focus on woodland areas in the province of Ontario, Canada, documenting incentivized managed forests to reveal the extent to which these landscapes are tied to the social, economic and political histories of production and conservation within the region.
Julia has a BA in Geography from Queen’s University, a Master of Science in International Planning from the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, and a Master of Urban Design from the University of Toronto. Before coming to Harvard, Julia worked in planning, landscape and urban design offices in London and Toronto, and in 2014 she was deputy curator of the Canadian exhibition at the 2014 Venice Biennale in Architecture entitled Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15 with Lateral Office. Julia is on the editorial board for the journal New Geographies and was the co-editor of New Geographies: 10 Fallow (2019). Other recent publications include Agents of Design: Incentivized Conservation in Southern Ontario’s Private Forests (in) Wood Urbanism: From the Molecular to the Territorial (2018), and her work with Lateral Office on the book Many Norths: Spatial Practice in a Polar Territory (2017). She has been an invited critic at a variety of universities in Canada and the US for landscape, urban planning and urban design studios, and has taught core studio courses at both Ryerson University and the University of Waterloo.
Charu Srivastava (DDes ’23) is an architect and engineer. Her interests include human-building interaction, perceptions of space and the future of workplace design. Her research focused on using machine-learning models to predict the impact of workplace design on perceived worker well-being and work performance.
Previously, Charu has worked as a researcher at the Google R+D Lab for the Built Environment, as well as the Urban Informatics Lab and Hybrid Physical + Digital Spaces at Stanford University. She also practiced architectural design at DES Architects + Engineers and CAW Architects, published articles as a Schneider Fellow at the U.S. Green Building Council and conducted social network analysis at Google Real Estate + Workplace Services.
Charu holds an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a B.S. in Architectural Design Engineering, both from Stanford. She also studied abroad at Oxford University. Her current research is supported by the Dean’s Annual Research Grant for Junior Faculty, the Harvard Real Estate Research Grant and the Harvard Campus Sustainability Innovation Fund. Charu has received an Honorable Mention by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program, the ARCC King Medal for Excellence in Environmental Design and Research and the Chappell Lougee Scholarship.
Elaine Stokes (DDes ’24), RLA, is an educator and landscape architect who studies the cultural and narrative implications of North American infrastructure. She is currently in her fourth year of the Doctor of Design program at the GSD, after spending several years working in professional practice, first at Stoss Landscape Urbanism and then Sasaki. Elaine’s research explores the riparian corridors of the Upper Mississippi River, focusing specifically on dams constructed on sites recognized as sacred land by the Dakota nation. Her work considers storytelling as a critical method deployed by both federal agencies and indigenous communities to explore new infrastructural imaginaries. This research is situated within the theoretical frameworks of water rights, indigenous sovereignty, river infrastructural history, landscapes of memory, and contemporary territorial landscape practice.
Elaine currently is an Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture at Rhode Island School of Design, where she has led a range of studios and seminars focused on urban post-industrial sites, landscape theory, and digital representation. She has previously taught at the GSD, the University of Minnesota, and Boston Architectural College.
Tianyu Su’s (DDes ’24) doctoral study focused on the potentials and challenges (both analytical and ethical) of using large-scale social media data to understand health-promoting behavior in urban environments. He analyzed more than one million online posts with state-of-the-art machine learning models to mine self-reported health behavior on social media. Then, to understand who and what is invisible in this big data source, i.e., which population group and their activity, he conducted intensive fieldwork to ground-truth the big data-based results and assess the biases and ethical concerns of the big data approach. Through his dissertation, Tianyu aspires to create a heuristic about how to appropriately apply new technology for the betterment of cities and society.
While studying at Harvard, Tianyu founded Place AI, an initiative advocating for and experimenting with responsible practice and strategies in urban technology applications, with a team of urban scholars and technologists. Before joining Harvard, Tianyu received his Master in City Planning from MIT, concentrating on Urban Information Systems and City Design & Development. He also holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. For his professional and research work, check out his personal website: https://www.tianyu-su.city/.
Ashley Tannebaum’s (DDes ’21) research examines how evidence-based design can lead to the construction of learning environments that foster academic and social growth. More specifically, Ashley’s dissertation studies at Harvard investigate how the built environment can facilitate collaboration among students within postsecondary innovation spaces, particularly in comparison to remote collaborative modalities. The Healthy Places Design Lab, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, and Doctor of Design program have generously funded this study.
Ashley centers her career on the study and design of effective, sustainable public spaces both within and outside of the realm of academic environments to foster social engagement. Since 2014, she has worked on academic, civic, and healthcare projects in all stages of design. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in Architecture and a Masters in Architecture + Health from Clemson University – the latter of which included an empirically-based thesis project funded through multiple grants. In this project, she aimed to locate effective behavioral healthcare environments for adolescents and identify specific design strategies to facilitate the therapeutic milieu.
Daniel Tish (DDes ’23) is a designer and researcher whose work lies at the intersection of digital fabrication, material science, sustainability, and computation, investigating new design opportunities through the lens of bespoke materiality. Working in collaboration with material scientists, his dissertation research developed robotic fabrication techniques for a new class of carbon-negative biocomposites made from microorganisms. At Harvard, Daniel was a member of the MaP+S group, and has had his research generously supported by the Center for Green Buildings and Cities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies. Daniel is also a Research Associate at Autodesk, where he develops new technologies for construction robotics. His work has been published as a part of recent ACADIA, Fabricate, Rob|Arch, and IASS conferences, as well as in the book Towards a Robotic Architecture and the journals Construction Robotics and TAD. Daniel’s work has been exhibited at Design Miami/ Basel and in venues across the US and in Australia.
Daniel was previously a Lecturer at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he taught digital fabrication. Additionally, he led an intensive summer masterclass at the University of Technology Sydney. Daniel has worked in the research offices of RVTR in Ann Arbor and murmur in Los Angeles, as well as in commercial firms in Chicago and St. Louis. Daniel received his Master of Architecture with Distinction from the University of Michigan and his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis with a self-guided special major in Sustainable Design.
Lara Tomholt (DDes ’22) studied how the integration of science, technology and design can help us develop new, innovative concepts for adaptable façades that significantly increase the energy efficiency of building thermoregulation.
Alongside her doctoral research at the GSD, she was part of Harvard’s Council of Student Sustainability Leaders, joined The Green Program, and conducted materials research for the GSD’s Adaptive Living Environments (ALivE) group. She was a research assistant for the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC), and conducted biology and biologically inspired robotics research at the Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory (formerly affiliated with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering). Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Energy & Buildings, Journal of Structural Biology and Science Translational Medicine.
Lara holds a BSc and MSc degree in Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences from Delft University of Technology. As part of her studies in Delft, she participated in multiple projects of The Why Factory (part of MVRDV) and an exchange program with the Polytechnic University of Milan. She worked as an intern at Benthem Crouwel Architects, after which her research was presented at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014.
Her other interests include complex data visualization, parametric modeling, fabrication, animal welfare, and food sustainability.
Guy Trangoš (DDes ’21) is a South African architect, designer and urban researcher. He is a founding partner in Meshworks Architecture and Urbanism, and a member of the New Geographies editorial board. His doctoral research investigates the historical, human, and spatial processes enacted by megascience.
Guy’s broader research considers the evolving relationships between urbanization, society, science, technology, and outer space. He has written on these and other themes for numerous publications including Folio, Perspecta, Scenario Journal, The Architectural Review, City Journal, Canadian Architect, and Architecture South Africa. In 2019 he edited New Geographies 11: Extraterrestrial, and in 2015 edited ‘Movement Johannesburg’. He also has authored chapters in other edited volumes.
He works commonly in multidisciplinary teams, and has been instrumental in award-winning architectural, research and graphic projects. He has most recently been employed as a researcher at LSE Cities, a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, a researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, and a Teaching Fellow at the GSD. He has also been a guest lecturer and critic at numerous institutions.
Guy holds a MSc. in City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Master of Architecture (Professional) from the University of the Witwatersrand.
Juan Pablo Ugarte (DDes ’24) holds an Architecture degree from Universidad Católica de Chile, and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard GSD. Juan Pablo’s doctoral research seeks to advance our understanding of the design cognition processes that underlie model making. Using post-cognitivist theories of the mind and eye tracking technology, he is designing and conducting experiments to record and analyze the gaze behavior of designers during exploratory model-making tasks. The results of these experiments may shed light on how designers think when they physically materialize their ideas, which in turn may help inform the future development of robotic tools that support and enhance designers’ creative thinking.
Hanne van den Berg (DDes ’21) is an urban planner and designer specialized in urban resilience, adaptation to climate change, participatory planning and (urban) decision-making processes and tools. As a Fulbright Fellow and doctoral researcher at the GSD, Hanne studies adaptive and participatory approaches to urban (climate) resilience. She focuses on the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and ways to achieve more equitable adaptation to climate change.
Before coming to Harvard, Hanne worked as researcher/advisor at the Dutch applied research institute of Deltares, where she was involved in the development of climate adaptation and urban resilience strategies and tools for the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Mexico and the United States. This included a two-year relocation to Singapore to strengthen Deltares´ knowledge alliance with the National University of Singapore. She has furthermore worked for architecture and urban design offices in London and in the Netherlands.
At the GSD, she has been a Teaching Fellow for a Design and Planning Studio on urban justice in Pittsburgh; Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis; as well as a Thesis Preparation course for Urban Design and Urban Planning students. She has acted as Thesis Director for students in the Urban Planning and Urban Design program and served as guest critic for numerous reviews at the GSD and externally. Her teaching experience furthermore includes a position as Studio Tutor at Delft University of Technology.
Her publications include peer-reviewed journal articles and conference publications, as well as assistance on a book publication on Singapore’s blue-green infrastructure with her Harvard GSD primary advisor (expected in 2019) and co-authorship of another book on urban grids and blocks with the same advisor (expected in 2019).
Hanne holds an MSc degree in Urban Planning and Design from Delft University of Technology (cum laude), an MA and BA degree in Architecture from the University of Cambridge (Honours) and a BSc in Natural Sciences from University College Utrecht (summa cum laude).
Liang Wang (DDes ’23) is an architect, urban designer, and educator. He was previously a teaching fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He taught at Syracuse University School of Architecture as the 2020-21 Harry der Boghosian Fellow. Liang’s scholarship and teaching concern history and theory of urban form, space and politics of the superblock, architecture and the idea of the city in East Asia, as well as the idea of the commons and collective living. His research work and teaching have been supported by Harvard University, Syracuse University, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, among others. In line with his research work, Liang is the co-author of the book Urban Blocks and Grids: History, Technical Features, and Outcomes (Scholars’ Press, 2019). He is also the co-editor of the twelfth issue Commons of the New Geographies journal (Harvard University Press, 2021). .
Previously, Liang completed his Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree with distinction from the GSD, where he was awarded the Urban Design Thesis Prize and the Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design. He also holds a Master of Architecture degree from Rice University, where he won the Morris R. Pitman Award in Architecture and the Fondren Research Award.
In addition to his academic experiences, Liang is the co-founder of Commons Office—a creative think tank and a research-minded design practice. Prior to founding Commons Office, he practiced architecture and urban design internationally at Herzog & de Meuron, SOM, WW Architecture, and Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects.
Jung Hyun Woo (DDes ’20) is an architect, urban designer, and planner specializing in spatial analytics for transit development plan and its design. Her doctoral dissertation concerns a multidimensional evaluation for Transit Oriented Development associated with infrastructure, walkability, culture, public realm, economies, and design. She developed an empirical research method with spatial network analysis tools in which a model projection for assessment of TOD impacts on a city and its urban qualities.
She holds a Master’s degree in Urbanism, Landscape, Ecology from the Harvard GSD. She earned an Advanced Master of Architecture at the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Ewha Womans University in South Korea.
Along with her practice, she worked at Relational Urbanism Office in London, MVRDV in Rotterdam, and SIAPLAN in Seoul. She taught an urban design core studio at the Berlage Institute in TU Delft (2012-2013) and was invited as a guest critic and lecturer in different countries. She has served as a teaching fellow and a research assistant at the Harvard GSD since 2015. She has published a research article in Kerb Journal 23: Digital Landscape (RMIT University, 2016) and her “Green Line- The Ecological Trajectory of Broadway in Manhattan” design project has been widely reported by the professional news media, such as NY Daily News, Abitare, Dezeen, and Business Insider. Her work has appeared in various publications, including the Vertical Village (MVRDV, NAI Publishers & Equalbooks, 2012), and Sketches for a National History Museum (SUN Publishers, 2011.)
www.archiurbanplatform.com
Longfeng Wu (DDes ’20) has a background in urban planning and landscape architecture. He is interested in the ecological and social services of green space in contemporary urbanization typically in the developing world. His dissertation focused on how the spatial distribution and formation of urban-rural green space effect its ecological as well as socioeconomic contributions during the rapid urban expansion in Beijing metropolitan area. Relying on data construction and consumption from various sources with the support of GIS techniques and quantitative analysis tools, Longfeng targeted a more efficient planning approach to improve the performance of the future urban-rural green spaces.
Longfeng holds a Master in Design Studies concentrated in Urbanism Landscape Ecology from Harvard Graduate School of Design. His researches have been granted by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard Asia Center, the Penny White Fund, Geology Society of America, and Harvard Center for Geographical Analysis. He also received scholarship from China Scholarship Council for the doctoral study. Before in GSD, he received a Bachelor of Engineering in Landscape Architecture and a Master of Engineering in Urban Planning from Beijing Forestry University. He has been involved in various scales of landscape design and planning projects closely working with several renowned landscape architects in China.
Seok Min Yeo’s (DDes ’24) research focuses on the relationship between ecological forces and design. His doctoral dissertation, titled Envelopes and Laboratories of Environmental Knowledge, narrates the story of architectural laboratories that sought to codify the formal relationship between climate and architecture. This dissertation was advised by Charles Waldheim, Ed Eigen, and Holly Samuelson. Yeo’s doctoral research was supported by the Office for Urbanization Research Fellowship from 2019-21, as well as the GSD Summer Research Grant in 2020, and the GSD Doctor of Design Research Grant in 2021.
At the GSD, he contributed to teaching courses in the Department of Landscape Architecture. Starting in 2018, he was a guest Instructor for numerous workshops for core design studios, Teaching Fellow for theory and representation courses, and Teaching Assistant for Master in Landscape Architecture design thesis and option studio..
Yeo joined the School of Architecture as a Part-Time instructor in Fall 2021. At Syracuse University, he taught the second-year undergraduate architectural design studio. He has also taught core architectural design studios at the Boston Architectural College from 2018-19.
Yeo was a Research Associate from 2018-19 and a Research Fellow from 2019-21 at the Office for Urbanization, led by Charles Waldheim. Yeo is a co-author of a forthcoming design research publication titled 50 Species-Towns (Harvard University, 2021) that imagines alternative futures of agrarian urbanization in China. A portion of this work was featured in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Design Week in 2021. He also contributed to the Office for Urbanization’s exhibition entry Heliomorphic Seoul for Seoul:Superground exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Architecture and Urbanism in 2018. Yeo has also held design positions at Payette and Safdie Architects in Boston.
Yeo earned his MLA from Harvard University in 2018, where he received the Master in Landscape Architecture Thesis Prize for his design thesis Wild: Manhattanism Unhinged. He earned his B.Arch from Syracuse University in 2015, where his design thesis Crazy Long: A Sticky Landscape Infrastructure received the Dean’s Citation for Excellence.
Jeongmin Yu (DDes ’20) is interested in informal settlements in highly developed East Asian cities. Focusing on the period from the 1940s to the present, her study explores the various forms and histories of informal settlements, with a particular focus on rooftop housing. Rooftop housing, which in most instances are illegally built and inhabited, is a common occurrence throughout East Asian cities. Jeongmin’s research explores its architectural typology, current demographics, relation to formal housing, role in society, and its future with the potential developments on the local and regional level.
Previously, Jeongmin worked at the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (AURI) in Korea and at the NYC Department of City Planning in the Urban Design Department. At AURI, she worked on an affordable housing project under South Korea’s Park administration (2013-2018), and constructed a database for Han-Ok (traditional Korean housing) remodeling. She was a teaching fellow and a guest critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Korea University.
Jeongmin holds a BA in Architecture from Columbia and a MLA from the GSD. Her master’s thesis proposed ways to improve the vulnerable housing and infrastructure in South Korea’s Daldongnaes (informal settlement areas). The project explored ways to minimize the residents’ inconvenience throughout the upgrade process, preserve the site’s local fabric, and promote a heightened sense of community.
Maroula Zacharias
(DDes ’24) is an architect, designer and technologist working at the intersection of photobiology, design and advanced materials. In her doctoral dissertation titled “Photobiological Materials”, she develops systems for synchronizing the physical properties of buildings with the occupants’ circadian rhythm and physiological health. In 2021, Zacharias founded Atelier Morphology, a cross-disciplinary studio transforming the contemporary’s interior to nature through light. Prior to GSD, she completed a Master of Science in Design and Computation at MIT, where she taught Design after her graduation, and a Diploma in Architectural Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens.
Boya Zhang (DDes ’25) is a Chinese architect interested in the relation between urban form and the cultural, political, and economic forces. As a Doctor of Design candidate at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Boya was a member of Office for Urbanization since 2018, where he contributed to a series of design research projects centered around the idea of agrarian modernization. Boya is the co-author of the book 50 Species-Towns (Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2021). His research engages with the global discourse of agrarian urbanism, in particular as a response to the increasingly urgent call for alternative imaginaries of rural futures. His doctoral dissertation focuses on the reception of ideas about the agrarian from the West to China. It aspires to offer an account of history through which the urban-rural transformation in 20th-century China could be understood in a broader theoretical framework beyond the conventional East-West divide. Boya holds a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Tsinghua University, and a post-professional master’s degree in architecture from Harvard GSD. Prior to pursuing the doctoral degree, he worked for architectural offices in Beijing, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Boston.