Archives: Faculties

Stathis G. Yeros

Stathis G. Yeros

School of Architecture
Assistant Professor
3522941457
ARCH 256
stathis@dcp.ufl.edu

Dr. Stathis G. Yeros completed his Ph.D. in Architectural History, Theory and Society at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on how space affects and is affected by struggles for social justice, focusing on queer and transgender cultures and politics. His recent article, “AIDS and the City: Bathhouses, Emplaced Empathy, and the Desexualization of San Francisco” (Urban History) examines how the iconographies of domesticity and death during the AIDS devastation changed contemporary urban homosexual politics. Dr. Yeros has published on queer and trans-of color spatial activism and on the subject of queer ecologies (with Chandra Laborde, UC Berkeley). He is currently working on his book manuscript, Queering Urbanism: Architecture, Embodiment, and Queer Citizenship. The book analyzes intersectional politics and cultural representations of gender, race, bodily ability and sexuality in queer and trans spaces. It uses the lens of queer insurgent citizenship to rework the meaning of diversity and inclusion in the built environment as a set of rights rather than accommodations. Yeros is also co-organizer of the ongoing Queer Ecological Imaginations working group, a collaborative platform seeking to address pernicious environmental injustices at a time of ecological collapse, which is supported by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, and Cal’s Center for Race and Gender. Prior to his Ph.D. Yeros earned a master’s of architecture from Berkeley, where he was the recipient of a yearlong Branner Traveling Fellowship. He also earned a master’s in Art History and Theater from the University of Glasgow, and practiced architecture in San Francisco.

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Jiayang Li

Jiayang Li

Department of Landscape Architecture, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Assistant Professor
ARCH 456
jiayangli@ufl.edu
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Dr. Jiayang Li is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of landscape design and climate change adaptation. Her research tackles the challenge of creating landscape change that makes communities more resilient and is welcomed by community members. Currently, Jiayang draws on social science theories and methods to study everyday landscape experiences and community perceptions of novel nature-based solutions. She has published in multiple top-ranked journals including Landscape and Urban Planning and given guest lectures and conferences presentations nationally and internationally. Jiayang earned her Ph.D. in Environment and Sustainability and Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan. She also holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Landscape Architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Before turning her primary focus to research, she had practiced in design firms including SmithGroup and AECOM.

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Shenhao Wang

Shenhao Wang

Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Assistant Professor
ARCH 434
shenhaowang@ufl.edu

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Ph.D. Computer and Urban Science,
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), M.S. Transportation and Master City Planning,
• Peking University, B.A. Economics,
• Tsinghua University, B.A. Architecture and Law, Master in Architecture, 2012

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Shenhao Wang is an assistant professor and the director of the Urban AI Laboratory at the University of Florida. He investigates three research themes in intelligent individual decisions, spatiotemporal urban dynamics, and computational urban justice. The first theme focuses on the individual decisions by integrating discrete choice models and deep learning with wide urban applications in the choice of travel modes, residential locations, and urban activities. The second theme treats cities as an interrelated system. By integrating network theory and deep learning, it quantifies the spatiotemporal dynamics between people and places, thus facilitating the design of resilient and sustainable urban systems. The third research theme focuses on the normative aspect of urban science by enhancing transparency, accountability, and fairness of the urban machine intelligence to achieve broad social impacts. With the theoretical innovations and practical impacts, the lab seeks to create a more sustainable, intelligent, and equitable urban future with artificial intelligence. His research has been funded by Department of Energy (DOE), Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), and industrial partners. Dr. Wang completed his interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Computer and Urban Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020. He received B.A. in Economics from Peking University (2014) and B.A. in architecture and law from Tsinghua University (2011), Master of Science in Transportation, and Master of City Planning from MIT (2017).

Research Areas
• Urban science
• Deep learning
• Choice modeling
• Urban mobility
• Network analysis

Links

  1. Urban AI Lab: http://urbanailab.com/
  2. Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=01AmQ8wAAAAJ&hl=en

PUBLICATIONS
·      S. Wang, Q. Wang and J. Zhao*. “Deep neural networks for choice analysis: Extracting complete economic information for interpretation”, Transportation research part C: emerging technologies, 118: 102701
·      S. Wang and J. Zhao*. “Risk preference and adoption of autonomous vehicles.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 126, 215-229.
·      D. Zhuang, S. Wang*, H. Koutsopoulos, and J. Zhao, “Uncertainty quantification of sparse trip demand prediction with spatial-temporal graph neural networks”, (Proceedings of the 28th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining)
·      S. Cranenburgh*, S. Wang, A. Vij, F. Pereira, and J. Walker, “Choice modeling in an age of machine learning – discussion paper”, (Journal of Choice Modeling: 100340)
·      Y. Zheng, S. Wang*, and J. Zhao, “Equality of opportunity in travel demand prediction with deep neural networks and discrete choice models”, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. 132: 103410.

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Lingqian (Ivy) Hu

Lingqian (Ivy) Hu

Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Chair, Department of Urban and Regional Planning; Associate Director, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
(352) 294-3060
ARCH 431B
hul@ufl.edu

Lingqian (Ivy) Hu is a professor in Urban and Regional Planning who joined the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning on July 1, 2022. She serves as the chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning as well as the associate director of the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning.

Professor Hu’s work has focused on the interrelationship between transportation and land use, with an emphasis on equity. She has extensive knowledge of real-world planning and policy efforts to promote just and prosperous cities, reduce socio-spatial inequity and enhance environmental justice and public health. Hu has been published extensively in prestigious urban planning and transportation journals, and has led more than $1 million funded research projects supported by the National Science Foundation and other agencies. One example of the impacts of her research is FlexRide Milwaukee, which pilots a new micro-transit service to address a long-term transportation gap in the Milwaukee region.

Before joining UF, Hu was a professor and the chair of the Urban Planning Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D. (of Policy, Planning and Development) and master’s (in Planning) degrees from the University of Southern California and her bachelor’s degree (in Planning) from Nanjing University. She worked as a planner at the Southern California Association of Governments (Los Angeles) and the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (Shenzhen, China).

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Jules Bruck

Jules Bruck

School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
Director, School of Landscape Architecture and Planning; Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture
(352) 294-3859
ARCH 431A
jbruck@ufl.edu
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Dr. Jules Bruck, RLA, joined the University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning on July 1, 2022, as director of the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. She came to DCP from the University of Delaware, where she was professor and founding director of the landscape architecture program. In those roles, she taught capstone and design process studios and courses in creativity, field sketching and ecological planting design. She is a registered landscape architect and a SITES Accredited Professional (AP).

In April 2018, she co-founded the Coastal Resilience Design Studio (CRDS). This Delaware Sea Grant-funded collaboration brings together educators, students, scientists, citizen-scientists, engineers, designers, artists and other academic institutions in Delaware to study and respond to issues affecting the state’s coastlines and coastal communities. CRDS work focuses on coastal challenges that stem from historical decisions, human settlement, sea-level rise and necessary compliance with water quality mandates. The goal of CRDS is to team community members with interdisciplinary experts and students to develop new strategies and manage special cases that threaten coastal communities. Ultimately, the studio hopes to drive policy to benefit coastal communities through more sustainable land use, planning and education.

The CRDS was honored as the 2021 Coastal Estuarine Research Federation’s student contest winner. Their project, Carbon in the Tidewater, focused on Hampton, Virginia, which has a low elevation, high rate of land subsidence and intense storm surge risk. Students explored the use of the Global Carbon Market to finance self-regenerating nature-based coastal infrastructure. This project also received an honor award from the Pennsylvania-Delaware chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

In the fall of 2021, Bruck became the co-director of UD’s Gerard J. Mangone Climate Science and Policy Hub. Over the past year, the Climate Change Hub developed the capacity of UD faculty and students to research and enhance courses with science-based climate change content by providing competitive awards for scholarship and teaching.

Her research interests are coastal resilience, green infrastructure and public perception of sustainable landscape practices. She is the principal investigator for a collaborative project called Developing Engineering Practices using Ecosystem Design Solutions for Future Army (DEEDS). This four-year project will allow her diverse team to research shellfish-based living shoreline solutions. Bruck has a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.

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Maria Watson

Maria Watson

M.E. Rinker, Sr, School of Construction Management, Shimberg Center for Housing Studies
Assistant Professor
RINKER 203
maria.watson@ufl.edu

Maria Watson is an Assistant Professor in the M.E. Rinker, Sr, School of Construction Management and affiliated researcher with the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies. Before coming to the University of Florida, she was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and Hazard Reduction Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. She has degrees in Urban Planning from The Ohio State University and Texas A&M University.

Dr. Watson’s research focuses on the factors impacting community recovery after disaster events, particularly interdependencies between infrastructure, housing, and businesses. She is particularly interested in the effectiveness of disaster programs and how these programs can be structured to better meet recovery needs. Watson has been a part of multiple interdisciplinary disaster recovery research efforts in Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina after Hurricanes Ike, Harvey, Matthew, Florence, Laura, and Delta. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Federal Emergency Management Agency for her research.

Dr. Watson has taught courses in quantitative methods, local government, and urban planning. She is currently co-teaching BCN-6585 Principles of Sustainable Development and Construction at the Rinker School.

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Chaofeng Wang

Chaofeng Wang

M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management
Assistant Professor
RINKER 342
chaofeng.wang@ufl.edu
http://charles-wang.me/

Dr. Wang is specialized in computational mechanics, uncertainty and risk quantification, AI, and their applications in the natural and built environment. He joined the Rinker School as an Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence. Before that, he earned degrees in Engineering Mechanics and Civil Engineering from Central South University and Clemson University and worked as a postdoctoral scholar at University of California, Berkeley.

Affiliation:

M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management

Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering

Research:

He has broad interests in the intelligent automation of design, construction and management of the next generation infrastructure system. He also develops cyberinfrastructure that leverages stochastic physics-based simulation, AI and data mining techniques for multi-scale modeling of the built and natural environment under chronic and acute stressors, which leads to informed decision-makings. Particularly, his focal areas include foundational issues in AI, data, and material sciences, such as: mechanism of neural networks, uncertainty quantification and dimension reduction of data and models, explainability and interpretability of algorithms and inferences, constitutive modeling and design of future construction materials.

Publications: Google Scholar

Teaching:

BCN5905 – Advanced Construction Technology – Additive Construction – Fall 2023
DCP 5905/6905 – Advanced AI Systems – Fall 2022
DCP 4300 – AI in Built Environment – Spring 2022, Spring/Fall 2023

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Karla Saldaña Ochoa

Karla Saldaña Ochoa

School of Architecture
Assistant Professor
(352) 294-1453
ARCH 252
ksaldanaochoa@ufl.edu
https://www.ai-share-lab.com/

Karla is an Ecuadorian architect; with a Master of Advanced Studies in Landscape Architecture from ETH Zurich. In June 2021, she finished her Ph.D. at ETH Zurich, which investigated the integration of Artificial and Human Intelligence to have a precise and agile response to natural disasters. Since August 2021, Karla is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Florida; her teaching and research focus on investigating the interplay of Artificial and Human Intelligence in architectural practices at building and urban scale. Karla is the leading researcher at SHARE Lab; a research group focused on developing human-centered AI projects focused on design practices.

Please visit SHARE Lab website if you want to know more or if you want to collaborate

www.ai-share-lab.com

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Luis Mejia-Puig

Luis Mejia-Puig

Department of Interior Design
Assistant Professor
(352) 294-1431
ARCH 136
luismejiapuig@ufl.edu

Areas of Research

The idea of delineating curricular advances in design education practices guides my research. I am interested in exploring how new digital media tools can positively affect the design process. The design process is an excellent example of creative thinking used to solve wicked problems present in all Social Sciences. Since the 1960s, research has focused on how the design process unfolds and the influence that traditional design tools have in that process. Physical manipulations through sketching and model making are critical elements in moving the design process forward. However, new digital tools are displacing these practices, and current design students are shifting their approach. This shift opens a gap, and the way we teach design must adapt to this new reality. To address this gap, I have focused my research on cognitive load theory. Through the combination of psychometric and physiological tools, I can analyze cognitive demand and cognitive workload quantitatively. Moreover, this approach transcends the boundaries of the design discipline and opens opportunities for multidisciplinary research.

What I Teach

I believe learning is a never-ending process, and as individuals, we should continue to learn for our whole lives. Like learning, design activity is a never-ending process where a designer’s final idea will be the starting point for another design. In my class, students will develop design proposals through collaborative teamwork. This approach allows students to experience firsthand the iterative aspect of design, the relevance of team collaboration, and understand design solutions as live outcomes to reimagine repeatedly. My teaching expertise of more than fifteen years with undergraduate design students relies on studio techniques. I believe design students learn through direct manipulation and master-apprentice guidance. At UF, I intend to enlighten students through my studio courses and mixed reality digital tools. Moreover, I hope my expertise in product development and background as an industrial designer can give Interior Design students a different approach to the design process.

My Educational Background

Originally from Colombia, I am an Industrial Designer with a Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in Design, Housing and Merchandising, and a master’s degree in Design and Product Development in Barcelona, Spain. I have broad teaching experience with undergraduate|graduate design students, and over ten of those years, I was Head for the Industrial Design Program at a Colombian university. To fulfill my education and widen my professional development, I have moved from Colombia in South America to Spain in Europe and now to the United States. I believe my international background has been critical to developing my aesthetic sensibility and multicultural understanding. Like any discipline with high symbolic and interpretative attributes, design discipline is about exploring perspectives and re-shaping the world.

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Cleary Larkin

Cleary Larkin

Historic Preservation
Director, Historic Preservation // Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
(352) 294-1438
ARCH 148
HPinfo@dcp.ufl.edu

Cleary Larkin (clarkin@ufl.edu) is a licensed architect with specialized practice experience in historic preservation and community planning. She holds a professional degree in Architecture from the University of Arkansas, a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. with a concentration in Urban Planning from the University of Florida.

She has worked as an architect and a preservation planner at Frazier Associates in Staunton, Virginia; Beyer Blinder Belle in New York City and for the City of Gainesville, Florida. Her practitioner experience includes adaptive re-use, restoration and rehabilitation; design and project management of architectural projects from programming through construction; research and writing for Historic Structure Reports, National Register nominations, rehabilitation tax credits, and design guidelines; design review in historic districts; new design within historic contexts; and use of fiscal incentives for redevelopment.

Dr. Larkin’s dissertation, Expanding the Historic Preservation Narrative: The intersections of planning, preservation and social context in the Vieux Carré Historic District designation, explored the collaboration between architects, preservation activists and planner Harland Bartholomew to create the New Orleans’ first Comprehensive Plan in 1929 and first legislation for the French Quarter historic district in 1925 and 1937, respectively.

Prior to her role as Acting Director of UF’s Historic Preservation program, Dr. Larkin was Program Coordinator for the newly formed Florida Resilient Cities (FRC) program at UF’s Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER). The first FRC project focused on sustainable recovery and growth of Port St. Joe, a historic mill town in the Florida panhandle, damaged by Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Dr. Larkin’s research interests include the intersections of architecture, preservation and planning, both in historical and contemporary practice; historic land-use decisions as a source of inequity in communities; and historic preservation as a social justice practice. She currently teaches Intro to History and Theory of Historic Preservation at the Graduate and Undergraduate levels, and two courses in the summer field course at Preservation Institute Nantucket (PIN): World Heritage Research and Stewardship, and Preservation Policy and Current Topics.

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