Name | Degrees | Research Interests/Specializations |
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SG Yeros (Stathis Gerostathopoulos)![]() |
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I study modern and contemporary urban history and theory with a focus on debates around ideas of difference within the built environment. My dissertation investigates the emergence of queer urbanism in the Bay Area during three overlapping periods: gay liberation and the beginning of the transgender movement (1966-1983), the response to HIV/AIDS (1981-2014), and queer politics (1990-today). I investigate the physical, social and administrative infrastructures associated with queer urbanism, and the corresponding distinct articulations of sexual citizenship through multiple community-specific demands, related obligations, and affiliations. In addition to spatial manifestations of sexual citizenship, I study the contingent and changing aesthetics of queer spaces in the Bay Area through visual anthropology methods. |
Arfa Aijazi![]() |
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building performance simulations, data visualization, machine learning, and climate change adaptability. |
AMINA AL-KANDARI![]() |
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Alkandari is a PhD Candidate in Architecture with a Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, specialized in History of Architecture and Contemporary Urbanization in Developing Countries with focus on the Middle East and the Arab Gulf specifically. Her Ph.D. dissertation focuses on Nation-Building and Modernity in Kuwait from the Early 1900 to the present. |
Heba Alnajada![]() |
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Luis Filipe Batista |
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Laura Belik![]() |
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Urbanism, public space, politics of space, urban democracy, commons, Latin America, Brazil, post-industrial cities, urban palimpsest, art and activism, curatorial works, cultural frameworks. |
Michelle Bynum |
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YING-FEN CHEN![]() |
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Chinese Urbanism, Cinema and Cities, Social Activism in East Asian context, Participatory Planning. My recent research focuses on the cultural process of urban imaginary making, film-induced tourism, and decentralized Chinese identities, particularly taking place in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the two major culturally Chinese locales beyond Mainland China. Dissertation working title: “The Contemporary Chinese Cinematic Urbanism in Taiwan and Hong Kong”. |
Lai Jing Chu![]() |
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Media and environments, theories of leisure and enchantment in post-industrial modernity, history of collective emotions and its impact on spatial formation, urban gentrification and preservation, architectural and urban history of modern and contemporary Hong Kong, China, and East Asia. |
Alexander Craghead![]() |
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I research the cultural intersection of meaning, change, and place, through both form and representation. I therefore study the built environment, the rhetoric that surrounds changes in that environment, and the visual depiction of place. I am particularly interested in the relationship between newness and age, especially in the processes of urban renewal, redevelopment, and gentrification, as well as the history and culture of the historic preservation movement. The nature of my work is interdisciplinary, in that it combines history, geography, and art history. Presently, I study sites on the U.S. West Coast, as here, in the youngest of Euro-American cities, the constructed nature of age and obsolescence is more easily seen.
More broadly, I am interested in architecture as media, the role of the urban imaginary, and cities as cultural landscapes. |
Megan Dawe![]() |
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Ms. Dawe comes with a background in California state building energy codes and consulting on new construction projects. Her research interests are to identify appropriate and climatically-driven solutions for buildings and to enhance the tools necessary for designers to accurately assess and implement these solutions to faciliate achievement of California’s Zero Net Energy goals. |
CAITLIN DECLERCQ![]() |
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Social research theories and methods in environmental design; the history and theory of college campus planning and design; social and historical contexts of educational spaces; evidence-based design; college health promotion; place and health; social determinants of health (social epidemiology); physical activity and sedentary physiology |
Giuseppina Forte![]() |
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Spatial Politics; History and Criticism of Architecture and Urbanism; Design Activism; Decolonizing the Curatorial; Urban Peripheries; Brazil; Peripheral Subjectivities |
Jennifer Gaugler![]() |
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Historic and contemporary architecture and urbanism of East Africa; globalization, postcolonialism, vernacular building traditions, and urban planning |
Razieh Ghorbani![]() |
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The everyday politics of architecture and construction in the Middle East; urban anthropology; architectural globalization and its rhetoric; postcolonial and alternative modernities |
JAIME GÓMEZ![]() |
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Dissertation: Learning through Domestic Settings: Institutional Domesticity and the Making of Model Citizens (working title): My dissertation explores how two institutions (boarding schools) used domestic settings and practices to influence children’s behavior with the aim of making model citizens. I use methods from cultural landscape studies to understand how the values promoted by these schools were coded in the institutions’ spatial configurations, and how children learned these values. I read the spatial settings of the institutions studied as domestic space. |
Caroline Karmann![]() |
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Indoor environmental quality (including thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort & indoor air quality), energy efficiency, user behavior |
Mohammad Keshavarzi![]() |
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Immersive Design, Augmented/Virtual Reality, Generative Design, Evolutionary Algorithms, Computational Design |
Joyce (Jihyun) Kim |
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Thermal comfort, occupant behavior, machine learning, energy efficiency, demand response and smart grids. |
Antony Kim![]() |
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Behavioral neurobiology and architecture, lighting for circadian health, post-occupancy evaluation, affordable housing policy, circular economy, and indoor environmental quality in animal research. |
Jihyun Kim |
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Won Hee Ko |
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Visual and thermal comfort and its relationship to occupants' well-being and performance, with a focus on the performance of building envelope. |
Jolene Lee |
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Padma Maitland![]() |
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Art and Architecture in South Asia; Buddhism; Conservation and heritage; Countercultural exchanges between India and California. |
Dana Miller![]() |
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Michelle Min![]() |
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History of American school architecture; Social construction of childhood; Places purpose-built for children and learning; Evidence-based environmental design; Possibilities for intersection between critical pedagogy, architectural history, and contemporary design practice |
Thomas Oommen![]() |
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Material histories, Politics of architectural and urban form, urban infrastructure in the Global South, developmental rhetoric, urban nature, postcolonial theory, subaltern studies. |
Tania Osorio Harp![]() |
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Design processes, the appropriation of spaces, methods of representation, architecture as an archive, design genealogies, Mexican identity, mestizaje, cultural landscape studies, critical race theories, women and gender studies. |
Eric Peterson |
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Architectural and Urban History, Political Economy, Urban Theory, U.S. Cultural History |
Kara Plaxa![]() |
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My research is structured around the places where sex happens and how sex is spatialized. I am currently investigating the spaces of the kink community with an emphasis on queer sexuality and subcultures. I am also interested in aesthetics, materiality, and fashion. I aim to enrich current discourse on gender and sexuality & through architsexture |
Elaina Present![]() |
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Building energy use; data-based energy analysis; grid modernization; occupant behavior; existing buildings; fans |
Rina Priyani![]() |
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History of architecture and urbanism in the 20th century; National identity in developing countries; Ethnicity and territoriality; Colonial and Postcolonial cities; Politics of heritage; Collective memory; Southeast Asia; Indonesia. Dissertation working title: “Remaking Bandung: Ethnic Identities, Colonialism and Building Practice in an Indonesian City” |
Trude Renwick |
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Urban Ethnography in Bangkok, Thailand; Currently Examining the Space of the Market in Bangkok, which includes Malls, Street Markets, and Abandoned Buildings; Urban Conflict and Political Movements; Urban Theory; Non Governmental Organizations; Anthropology |
Emily J. Rosen |
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Valentina Rozas-Krause![]() |
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Valentina Rozas Krause is interested in the History of Architecture and Urbanism, Memorials and Monuments, Cultural Memory, Theories of Urban Design and Planning, Landscape Design and Cultural Geography. Her dissertation research focuses on the representation of memories of twentieth century traumas in public urban space in Argentina, Germany and the United States. She studies monuments on two levels: as an emerging global practice of memorialization and as places for everyday life. Valentina grew up in Berlin and Santiago. |
Alberto Sanchez-Sanchez![]() |
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Modern architecture; vernacular architecture; infrastructures and public works; historic preservation; media studies; anthropology; demography; human rights; public policy; Spanish and European studies. |
Ettore Santi![]() |
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Global Modernism and the Built Environment; Urbanization and Agrarian Change; Human, Nature, and Technology Relations; Land and Territory; China Rural-Urban studies. |
Haripriya Sathyanarayanan![]() |
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Total Building Performance, Sustainable Healthcare Design, Passive Design, Natural Ventilation, Daylighting, Building Envelope, Energy Efficiency & Benchmarking |
Cailin Shannon |
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Shahrzad Shirvani![]() |
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Contemporary urban history of developing countries with a focus on Iran; Politics of everyday life in the Middle Eastern cities with a focus on Tehran; Construction of national identity through practices of shared memory and commemoration in Iran; Contemporary histories and narratives of monuments, Traditions and Modernities in the context of the Middle East; Cities, citizenship, and urban transformations; gendered segregation and urban politics of social control; Publicity and ‘freedom’; Public spaces of leisure and entertainment. |
Noam Shoked![]() |
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History of architecture and urbanism, ordinary landscapes, urban anthropology, and Middle Eastern studies |
Alec Stewart![]() |
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ELAINE BROWN STILES![]() |
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Twentieth-century U.S. architecture and urbanism, nineteenth and twentieth-century U.S. and European suburban development and design, the history of consumerism and spaces of consumption, material culture, vernacular architecture, and cultural landscape studies |
Elnaz Tafrihi |
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Elnaz Tafrihi is a designer and a PhD student in Building Science program at UC Berkeley . Her background in daylight and energy simulation highlight Elnaz’s ability to inform the human relationship with the built environment. After receiving her Masters in design studies from Harvard, Elnaz worked in the energy consulting field on large scale projects including the Tianjin Juilliard School of Music, Dubai Expo 2020, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Elnaz currently works on integration of building simulation in virtual reality. |
Desirée Valadares![]() |
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Swetha Vijayakumar![]() |
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Architectural history and historiography, Postcolonial theories in architecture and urbanism, Subaltern architecture, Politics of memory in urban enviroments, Patronage and production of contemporary Hindu sites, Colonial historiographies of Hindu temples, Anthropology of urban tourism, Religious nationalism and emergence of modern religious movements in 20th and 21st century India. |
Jonathan Woolley![]() |
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Jonathan Woolley studies energy efficient mechanical systems for buildings. Most broadly, his research encompasses hybrid solutions that integrate various system types to facilitate comfortable and healthy indoor environments with minimal energy consumption. Jonathan advances climate appropriate strategies that embrace the unique needs and opportunites associated with local environmental condiitions. He has conducted research on passive solar design, natural ventilation, radiant cooling and heating, indirect evaporative cooling, advanced heat pump systems, heat recovery, occupancy based learning thermostat controls, and many other energy efficiency strategies. |
JIONG (ABINGO) WU![]() |
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Histories and Approaches of 20th Century Mass Housing; Theories and Histories of 20th Century Urbanism; Interdisciplinary China Study; China urbanizing villages. Dissertation: “Alternative Housing and Living in Guangzhou Peri-urban Villages” |