With the fall 2021 semester, the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design has welcomed several new architecture and interior design faculty members, while welcoming back several architecture and interior design faculty members who joined the school in fall 2020.

In addition, Theodore Hoerr, founder of Terrain Work in New York City, has joined the school this semester as the 2021 Verna C. Garvan Distinguished Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture.

"The growth of the Fay Jones School is reflected in the arrival of this stellar group of new faculty, both this year and last," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the school. "We're not only growing in sheer faculty numbers, but also in creative, intellectual, and advocacy and engagement capacities — from expanded abilities in foundation design, advanced timber and wood design, housing design, and advanced digital technology design, to new dimensions in augmented reality, computational design, and artificial intelligence-based design. The school is committed to preparing its students to meet the challenges and responsibilities of the complex future already upon us."

Joining the Fay Jones School faculty this year are Alyssa Kuhns, David Kennedy, Pedro Veloso, Alexandra Waller and Nathaniel Elberfeld in the Department of Architecture and Jinoh Park in the Department of Interior Design.

Alyssa Kuhns is an assistant professor of architecture. She is a registered architect whose work mediates the scope of objects, interiors and architecture. After receiving her Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University, Kuhns worked as a Project Manager for a Pittsburgh-based design-build firm. She then went on to receive her Master of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute before becoming the inaugural Interior Architecture Fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Prior to joining the faculty at the Fay Jones School, Kuhns was a visiting assistant professor of architecture at Auburn University, where she developed and coordinated digitally focused foundations curriculum. Her research integrates her multidisciplinary experiences and centers on the impact of material culture on the domestic realm.

David Kennedy is an assistant professor of architecture. He was most recently an assistant professor of architecture at Auburn University's College of Architecture, Design and Construction and a founding member of Decentralized Design Lab. He teaches Building Technology and Design Studio courses, and his research focuses on the economic, ecological, social and energetic impacts of mass timber construction systems.

At Auburn, Kennedy taught several courses based in mass timber and conducted funded research on topics surrounding the potential of mass timber in North America. Decentralized Design Lab's work focuses on relationships among material, energy and land. Notable projects include the Littleton Trials, a series of huts for testing the thermal performance of mass timber structures; One House, a single-family, affordable cross-laminated timber (CLT) housing prototype for First Nations groups; and Washington Baths, a community sauna in Portland, Maine. Kennedy is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and completed his education at Carnegie Mellon University and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Pedro Veloso is an assistant professor of architecture. He is an architect and computational designer with international experience in research, architectural education, and design technology consulting. He brings an interdisciplinary perspective to architectural design based on ideas from design theory, biology, cybernetics and artificial intelligence. As a practitioner, he has worked on a wide range of projects, from interactive installations to the customization of building layouts. His current teaching interests comprehend creative and collaborative design supported by generative strategies, and informed by contextual, programmatic, environmental and urban data.

Veloso received a Bachelor of Architecture and Urbanism from the University of Brasilia and a Master of Architectural Design from the University of Sao Paulo. He is currently a doctoral candidate in computational design at Carnegie Mellon University, developing intelligent and interactive agents for architectural composition.

Alexandra Waller is an instructor in architecture. A designer from Alexandria, Virginia, she is a cofounder and principal of Teltta, a research and design collective based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was recently selected for the inaugural Design Seaport biennial in Boston and presented scholarship at ACADIA 2020: Digital Proximities. Her work has been exhibited at Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis and Palazzo Michiel in Venice, Italy, during the European Cultural Centre's Venice Design 2018.

Waller received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design with a minor in art history from James Madison University, and a Master of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was the recipient of the Hugh Ferriss Award for Architectural Drawing. Previously, she has taught undergraduate and graduate design studios and seminars as a full-time faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2021, she received a Master of Science in design and computation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nathaniel Elberfeld is a visiting assistant professor of architecture. A designer from Alexandria, Virginia, he has worked in the office of Joel Sanders Architect in New York City and has taught undergraduate and graduate design studios and seminars as a full-time faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a cofounder and principal of Teltta, a research and design collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was recently selected for the inaugural Design Seaport biennial in Boston and presented scholarship at ACADIA 2020: Digital Proximities.

Elberfeld received a Bachelor of Science in physics from the College of William & Mary, and a Master of Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a Danforth Scholar. In 2020, he received a Master of Science in design and computation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Palazzo Michiel in Venice, Italy during the European Cultural Centre's Venice Design 2018.

Jinoh Park is an assistant professor of interior design. He is an educator, practitioner and researcher in design. His background is in interior design, business administration, and design research with professional experience since 2005. He has experienced various scales of practice, including planning, architecture, interior, furniture, products and service design, and he currently runs his design studio 331C&co. In addition, he has been teaching students in undergraduate and graduate programs from 2010.

Park received a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from Hanyang University, in Seoul, Korea; a Master of Business Administration from Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technology, in Seoul, Korea; an Executive Master of Business Administration from Aalto University, in Helsinki, Finland; and a Doctor of Philosophy in Design from North Carolina State University.

Theodore Hoerr is the school's 2021 Verna C. Garvan Distinguished Visiting Professor in Landscape Architecture. Hoerr, RLA, ASLA, is the founding principal of Terrain Work, an award-winning landscape architecture, urban design and public art firm based in New York City. His professional and academic work explores how landscape's innate ability to change creates new emergent forms and experiences synthesizing culture, nature and the built environment. He has led the design of a diverse range of projects in five continents from large-scale urban strategies reshaping the future of cities to small-scale landscapes emphasizing the craft of building. 

Hoerr received his Master in Urban Design with distinction and Master in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has taught in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design since 2015.

Faculty members returning to the Fay Jones School for their second year are Candi Adams and Ngozi Brown in the Department of Architecture and Jisun Lee and Marjan Miri in the Department of Interior Design.

Candi Adams is an instructor in architecture. She joined the Fay Jones School faculty in fall 2020 as a visiting assistant professor after 15 years of private practice in rural, south Arkansas. The majority of her professional work is residential, institutional and in rural community and economic development. With a passion for community and professional service, she has served on various state and national committees for The American Institute of Architects and National Council of Architectural Registration Boards since 2005 and has worked with a multitude of nonprofit organizations. Since August 2020, she has worked in collaborative efforts to develop a housing center to design and implement regionally specific and culturally sensitive affordable housing prototypes in Arkansas. This work is currently focused in Northwest Arkansas and the Timberlands region of southwest Arkansas.

Adams received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Fay Jones School in 2004 with high honors, receiving the Alpha Rho Chi medal, and a Master of Science in Community Development from Kansas State University. Adams believes design is as much about the people who inhabit a place as it is about physical constructs, and she heavily implements this into her professional and educational work.

Ngozi "Nome" Brown is an instructor in architecture. Brown, AIA, ASID, NOMA, NCARB, NCIDQ, M.Ed., LEED AP®ND, EDAC, GPCP, is both a licensed architect and an NCIDQ-certified interior designer. In the Fay Jones School, she teaches third year design studio. Her expertise includes learning environment design and evidence-based design. She is EDAC-certified by the Center for Health Design.

Brown is a magna cum laude graduate of Tuskegee University, where she completed her Bachelor of Architecture. She is also a 4.0 GPA graduate of Concordia University, in Portland Oregon, where she received a Master of Education. She is certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as a LEED Accredited Professional with a specialty in Neighborhood Development. She is certified by the Green Building Initiative as a Guiding Principles Compliance Professional.

Jisun Lee is an assistant professor of interior design. She received her Ph.D. in Interior Architecture and Built Environment at Yonsei University, South Korea, and she continued her research as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. She also holds a Master of Science in Design Management and a Bachelor of Science in Housing and Interior Design, both from Yonsei University. Her design research examines the relationships between the built environment and human behavior, integrating advanced research methods with emerging technologies.

Before her doctoral studies, Lee practiced as an interior designer and project manager for 15 years. Her design work included various project types, such as large-scale corporate, hospitality, retail, workplace, healthcare and private residences. Lee believes that good environmental design contributes to facilitating a physically and socially healthy society. Her design practice and research aim to contribute to a healthy and sustainable environment that promotes human health and wellbeing.

Marjan Miri is a visiting assistant professor of interior design. Her design interests include designing and fabricating experimental installations using advanced technologies and developing and using emerging technologies to study human behavior and build environments. She is particularly interested in intricate patterns and computational design.

Miri received a Master of Interior Design from The University of Texas at Austin, as well as a Bachelor of Architecture from Islamic Azad University of Qazvin, Iran, and a Master of Urban Design from Science & Research University of Hamedan, Iran. Miri seeks any opportunity to utilize new technologies in her design process. Her international education and experience help her bring a different point of view to her work.