Thursday, January 1, 2026
By: Kyle Niblett
University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning Dean Chimay Anumba announced the appointment of Nam-Kyu Park, Ph.D., as chair of the Department of Interior Design, effective immediately. Park replaces Roberto Rengel, who retired at the end of 2025.
“Serving as chair of the Department of Interior Design is an honor and a privilege I deeply value,” Park said. “I look forward to advancing academic excellence, creative innovation, and professional relevance. My vision is to strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration, elevate research and design excellence, and ensure our department leads in forward-thinking, human-centered design.”
Park joined DCP in August 2007 and has been a force for change ever since. With a specialty in building energy, sustainable architecture, and design, the sustainability dimensions of her work relate to sustainability education and lifestyle practices. She is a LEED accredited professional and NCIDQ certified interior designer who previously served as an associate professor in the department.
She also possesses evidence-based design accreditation (EDAC), and an LC-Lighting Certificate. Park teaches a broad range of coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, from design studios focused on retail, hospitality, healthcare and office environments, to interior lighting design, building systems, interior design detailing, and graduate research seminars. Her research focuses on optimizing well-being, health, and human behavior through the design of the built environment. Theories of environment-behavior and social psychology are threaded together in her research program using a mixed methods research design.
Her principal areas of research address the impact of lighting in interior environments and environmental design for special needs populations. She also examines cultural dimensions of the built environment defining environmental and social sustainability. The scholarship of Dr. Park and her students has been well presented internationally and nationally and has appeared in a variety of scholarly journals. Currently, she is serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Interior Design.
