IDRL - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Visiting Scholar
- Visiting Scholar / School of Architecture
Bo-Ra Lee is a visiting scholar in the Integrated Design Research Lab (IDRL) of the School of Architecture. Also she is a research fellow in KOREA RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CONSTRUCTION POLICY (RICON). She has researched in the field of improving policies and systems related to the construction policy especially subcontract, construction performance, and Green Housing. Her doctoral dissertation was about Long-Life Housing in Yonsei University in South Korea. Her research interests include policies to develop Green Housing.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Assistant Professor of Architecture
Catty Dan Zhang is an assistant professor of architecture at UNC Charlotte. Her research and practice explore the design of active atmosphere at the convergence of digital media and architecture. Employing atmospheric and computational mediums, her work translates ordinary objects into performative and synergistic systems to visualize and to modulate ephemeral forms.
Zhang has practiced in the US and China. In 2020, she was selected as the winner of the inaugural Emerging Designer's Exhibition Competition and had her solo exhibition entitled "The Moving Air" at UC Berkeley, exploring a cultural-environmental paradigm of airflow as a spatial agency. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at venues such as the London Design Festival, Carnegie Museum of Arts, A+D Museum, Harvard GSD, among other institutions, and has received recognitions in international design awards and competitions including the AN Best of Design Awards and A+D Design Awards. Zhang was a finalist of the Wheelwright Prize in 2018 and 2021. She earned a BArch from Tsinghua University, an MArch with Honors from Washington University in St. Louis, and an MDes in Technology from Harvard University Graduate School of Design where she was the 2017 recipient of the Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology and Sustainability.
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow, Technology and Design
Elena Vazquez, PhD. is a computational designer, researcher, and educator. Her work focuses on smart materials for adaptive buildings, and it has been supported by the American Institute of Architects Upjohn Research Initiative Grant and the Architectural Research Centers Consortium. Her interdisciplinary research bridges material science and computational design and has won awards such as the Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award.
Elena holds a Ph.D. in Architecture (Design Computing), a Master of Science in Architecture, and a graduate certificate in Additive Manufacturing from Penn State. She obtained her professional degree in Architecture from the Universidad Nacional de Asunción. There, she founded an architecture studio with her partner and worked on several housing projects' design and construction supervision. Her master's work: "Perforated Masonry Walls: Creating a digital framework for optimizing environmental performance through shape configuration," has been recognized with the "Distinguished Master's Thesis Award," an acknowledgment of excellence in master's thesis research. In Spring 2018, she received the ARCC King Medal for Excellence in Architectural and Environmental Research.
As a computational designer, she has worked and collaborated with architecture studios and manufacturing companies such as SOM, Zahner, and BamCore. In addition, she has extensively published in computer-aided architectural design proceedings, including eCAADe, Sigradi, Caadria, and CAADFutures, and peer-reviewed journals. Elena is a 2016-2018 Fulbright scholar, a 2020-2021 Waddell Biggart Graduate Fellow, and a 2021-2022 Freiburg Rising Star.
Franklin is an Undergraduate student at UNC Charlotte in the 4-year Architecture degree program pursuing his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture. He is currently working as a research assistant in the Integrated Design Research Lab. Franklin is also a member of the Arts + Architecture Honors Program.
Gabriela Angulo was born and raised in Lima, Perú. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree (B.A.) in Architecture from Universidad de Lima. She is a Master of Architecture (MARCH II) student at UNC Charlotte and is working as a Research Assistant in the IDRL, currently supporting Elena Vasquez in her Responsive Facades research.
Gabriela is passionate about urban design and promoting the creation of better infrastructure to improve people's quality of life. Before joining UNC Charlotte, she worked for five years in the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima leading the Urban Mobility division of PROLIMA, which is a local government program for the recovery of the historic center of Lima.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Program Director
- Associate Professor Director of Undergraduate Programs
Greg Snyder is an Associate Professor and the Undergraduate Program Director at the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte. His research interests are in issues that arise out of acts of making and construction, and the phenomena and meaning that accrue in and around these acts. The current set of projects that he is pursuing these research interests through is Case Goods - an investigation of furnishings as expandable environments, and The Metal Building in the Expanded Field - a body of work that looks to develop alternative ways to employ standardized building systems and catalogue componentry. His class First Year for Life is a recurring seminar elective that examines relationships between one's architectural education and the practice of everyday life. His most recent class An Environmental Ethic seeks to introduce students to a set of interdependencies between Nature, Civilization, and Culture as a background to addressing critical issues of stewardship and design in the contemporary moment.
Job Titles:
- Designer
- Researcher
- Assistant Professor in Building Technology and Design Integration
Jonathan Dessi-Olive is a researcher, designer, and educator who joined the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte in 2022. In his role as an assistant professor in building technology + design integration, Dessi-Olive will teach architecture design studios, structures, and construction research seminars that take a critical approach to technology. He is also the director and founder of the MycoMatters Lab, a design and research practice that develops novel applications of fungi-based materials in structural design, architectural acoustics, and sculpture. Through interdisciplinary collaborations with architects, artists, engineers, biologists, farmers, economists, and students, the Lab's work contributes to the broad disciplinary areas of sustainable building technology, architectural acoustics, and computational design.
Dessi-Olive's research has been published by the International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS), the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), the Symposium for Simulation in Architecture and Urban Design (SimAUD), and the Conference for Nonconventional Materials and Technologies (NOCMAT). His design and construction work has been exhibited in public venues such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, TEDxPenn, the Center for Architecture in New York City, Beach Museum of Art, and The University of Virginia.
Prior to joining UNC Charlotte, Dessi-Olive was an assistant professor at Kansas State University, and he was the inaugural Ventulett NEXT Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture from 2017-19. He earned a Master of Science (SMArchS) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Design Computation, a Master of Architecture (MArch) from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Minnesota.
Jonathan is an Undergraduate student at UNC Charlotte in the 4-year Architecture degree program pursuing the dual MArch degree in Design Computation. Currently, he is working as a research assistant in the IDRL lab, and his interests are in VR with architecture and computational design. His current focus with the IDRL Lab is on the uses of VR in designing a resilient facility with the Systems Engineering department.
Job Titles:
- Architect
- Researcher
- Visiting Scholar in Emerging Technology and Design
Julio Diarte is an architect, researcher, and educator with a Ph.D. in architecture from Penn State University. He currently works as a lecturer at UNC Charlotte, College of Arts and Architecture, where he teaches second-year Design Studio and Computational Methods. His research intersects the areas of design for climate change, craft and digital fabrication, and material processes. During his PhD, Julio developed methods and tools to reuse waste cardboard as a construction material for low-cost and sustainable architecture. In his teaching, Julio focuses on developing critical-making skills by engaging students in material-based projects combining low and high-tech tools to design and prototype full-scale components. Julio received the 2020 Engineering for Change (E4C) Research Fellowship in Habitat and 2022 E4C Expert Fellowship, 2019-20 and 2022 Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture Sustainability Faculty Teaching Fellow, and the 2019 John Row Sustainability Champion Award. His research has been published in peer-reviewed conference proceedings and journals about architecture, computational design, and circular economy, including ARCC, CAADRIA, and CAD Futures. His work "Tapping into Urban Recycling for Low-cost/No-cost Housing Solutions: Using Waste Cardboard to Build & Sustain the Resilient City" has been showcased at the 2021 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.
Job Titles:
- Master of Architecture / School of Architecture
Kyah S. Tucker is a Master of Architecture student at the UNC Charlotte. Born and raised in Lynchburg, VA, Kyah relocated to Charlotte, NC after receiving her B.S. in Manufacturing Engineering at Virginia State University, a historically black university. She is passionate about bettering communities and increasing the representation of African American women in Technology and Architecture. Kyah is currently a Graduate Assistant for the Integrated Design Research Lab for the School of Architecture where she is conducting research on Biophilic Facade: An Initial Road Map to Regenerative Technology Transfer.
Job Titles:
- Architect
- Assistant Professor
With a sizeable portion of the globe occupying hot-humid climate zones, Liz McCormick's work strives to enhance architectural innovation and construction technologies in tropical regions. She is an architect, educator, and researcher whose work explores climatically sensitive and contextually appropriate building enclosure designs that both connect the occupant to the outdoors and reduce the dependence on mechanical conditioning.
Liz is a licensed architect, LEED AP, and Certified Passive House Consultant. With nearly 10 years of experience in Santa Fe, Seattle, Boston, Houston, Singapore, and New Orleans, Liz has worked on a variety of projects, including several single-family passive houses and LEED-certified commercial buildings and campuses. She joins UNC Charlotte from Tulane University in New Orleans.
She completed her Master of Science in Building Technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a Bachelor of Fine Art and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. Liz publishes and presents regularly at international conferences.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor / Architecture / 704 - 687 - 0119
- Associate Professor at the Integrated Design Labs
Mona Azarbayjani is an Associate Professor at the Integrated Design Labs, Energy Performance Laboratory of the UNC Charlotte School of Architecture, where she is currently teaching comprehensive studios, core building technology courses, energy modeling, and interactive envelope seminars. Her focus in research is on the energy performance of buildings, the study of thermal comfort with new technologies, and climate-responsive building design.
Dr. Azarbayjani received the B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees (with highest distinction) from the University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran, and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), in Architecture-Building Technology.
Dr. Azarbayjani is the recipient of the 2006-2007 UIUC Merit Scholarship in Architecture and the scholastic excellence honor during 2008-2009 at UIUC. She is also the recipient of the Exceptional Talents Fellowship from the University of Science and Technology. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society by election of the chapter at the University of Illinois, a LEED AP with the U.S. Green Building Council and a member of ASHRAE, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, as well as a member of the Building Technology Educator Society (BTES), Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE), and International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA).
She was the lead PI of a Department of Energy/NREL grant to design, build, and operate a zero-energy house for the 2013 Solar Decathlon at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California, in October 2013. As the lead faculty and project manager, she collaborated with hundreds of students, faculty, and industry partners in garnering the People's Choice Award, eighth place in Architecture, and third place in the Engineering competition.
Job Titles:
- Master of Architecture / School of Architecture
Nejla Harris is a Master of Architecture student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, expected to graduate in 2024. Nej holds a Bachelor's degree in Interior Architecture with a Minor in African Diaspora Studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has been working alongside the Integrated Design Research Lab specifically under Professor Kyoung Kim. This research assistantship focuses on advancing the knowledge of Solar Architecture and the possibilities of Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems (BIPV).
Job Titles:
- Master of Science in Architecture
Job Titles:
- Master of Architecture / School of Architecture
Ramona Reinhart has a Bachelor's Degree (B.A. Sc.) in Architecture and Urban planning from the Leibniz University in Hanover, Germany. She is in the MArch II program at UNC School of Architecture and working as a Research Assistant in the IDRL, currently supporting Greg Snyder in his Metal Building research. Her focus in that body of work are performance studies concerning daylight and energy. The work is performed on a parametric study model using a mainly standardized metal building system in RHINO. The studies are conducted using the cove.tool, an automated building performance platform, in order to optimize the metal building construction in its use and performance.
Job Titles:
- Master of Architecture / School of Architecture
Ria Naab graduated from Clemson University in May 2022 with a degree in Architecture. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Architecture here at UNC Charlotte. She is working with the MycoMatters Lab, researching augmented reality(AR) and its applications in fabrication.
Saeed Rezaee Parsa is an Architectural Engineer with a focus on Building Technology and Energy Efficiency that
Tyler Palmer is an undergraduate studying a Dual Degree in Computer Engineering and Systems Engineering. Tyler's research focuses on designing, constructing, and maintaining solar technologies in emerging BIPV (building integrated photovoltaic) architecture. His passions include Robotics, Advanced Prosthetics, and Solar Technologies. Upon graduating, Tyler hopes to pursue both Masters and Doctoral degrees.