The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (糖心vlog) and the 糖心vlog Research + Scholarship Committee, in partnership with , are pleased to announce the 2026 Cohort for the Academy for Public Scholarship on the Built Environment: Spatial Determinants of Health.
This cohort brings together twelve architecture faculty whose research explores the spatial determinants of health and seeks to strengthen its impact on public discourse and policy. They will participate in The OpEd Project鈥檚 online 鈥淲rite to Change the World鈥 workshops, connecting participants with diverse disciplinary backgrounds, voices, and ideas. The cohort members will be researching and writing articles that examine the relationship between the built environment, human health, and well-being, as well as architecture鈥檚 role in shaping healthier communities.
Following the workshop, the cohort will have up to three months of access to The OpEd Project鈥檚 Mentor-Editor network for support and individualized feedback as they develop their op-ed drafts. By the end of the training, cohort members are expected to complete the workshops and submit an op-ed for publication in a local, regional, or national news outlet.
The 2026 Cohort includes:
JULIO BERMUDEZ
Catholic University of America
Julio Bermudez, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at The Catholic University of America and President of the (ACSF), an international organization of more than 1,000 members from 65 countries that he co-founded in 2007. He holds a Master of Architecture and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Minnesota.
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Dr. Bermudez鈥檚 work explores the relationship among architecture, culture, and spirituality through the lenses of phenomenology and neuroscience. He has widely lectured, organized symposia, taught, published, and appeared in the media on these topics, including and Current. His current research includes three , supported by $1.5 million in grants from Templeton Religion Trust. He published three books:听“听(CUA Press, 2015),听““听(Ashgate, 2015, co-edited with Thomas Barrie and Phillip Tabb), and听鈥听(CUA Press, 2023).
Bermudez taught architectural design, communication, and theory for four decades in the United States and abroad. From 2010 to 2023, he directed the 听 graduate concentration at The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Allied Arts, where he developed the , an internationally recognized design studio that engaged distinguished architects from around the world. He also co-founded and co-led the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics (SiGraDi) from 1997 to 2005 and helped establish an academic exchange program between universities in Santa Fe, Argentina, and Salt Lake City, Utah.
His major recognitions include the AIA Education Honors Award (1998), 糖心vlog Creative Achievement Award (2004鈥05), Arturo Montagu Creative Career Prize (2005), ACADIA Award for Teaching Excellence (2006), CAADRIA Sasada Award (2010), and 糖心vlog Distinguished Professor Award (2021).
SANDRA BERNAL
University of Arizona
Sandra Bernal, PhD, is a lecturer at the University of Arizona鈥檚 College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA), where she advances interdisciplinary research and teaching at the intersection of the built environment and health. Her work focuses on human-centered design, environmental factors, and the impacts of extreme heat, air quality, and resource use in arid regions.
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Dr. Bernal is an active collaborator across the university, working with partners in the College of Medicine, Engineering, Public Health, and community organizations to develop innovative, community-engaged solutions. She is a key contributor to the Heat and Health Resilience Innovation Consortium, where she integrates design, technology, and education to advance climate-responsive strategies that reduce heat-related risks and improve wellbeing.
Her teaching bridges research and practice through participatory, student-driven models that prepare future professionals to address complex environmental challenges. Through courses such as Human Factors & Wellness, Sustainable Cities, and Placemaking & Urban Form, she embeds real-world research into the classroom, supporting award-winning student work on climate-responsive design and health innovation.
Dr. Bernal also plays a leadership role in advancing sustainable design education and professional pathways, contributing to initiatives aligned with the U.S. Green Building Council and mentoring students in green building certification and applied sustainability.
Trained as an architect with a PhD in Arid Lands Resource Science, her scholarship and pedagogy emphasize collaborative approaches that connect design, research, and community impact, particularly in the U.S.鈥揗exico border region and the Sonoran Desert.
SARA CARR
Northeastern University
Sara Jensen Carr is an Associate Professor and the Undergraduate Programs Coordinator at the Northeastern University School of Architecture. Her work, teaching, and research examines the connections between urban landscape, architecture, climate resilience, and human health.
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Her work has been funded by the National Endowment for Humanities, Mellon Foundation, Graham Foundation, and J.M. Kaplan Fund, as well as published in varied outlets including Preventive Medicine, LA+ Journal, Places Journal, and the Journal of Architectural Education. Her book,听The Topography of Wellness: How Health and Disease Shaped the American Landscape, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2021 and was a recipient of the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize as well as the Award of Excellence in Communications from the American Society of Landscape Architects. She is a nationally-recognized scholar on how epidemics have influenced design, and has been interviewed by the听New York Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, BBC, and NPR, among others.
At Northeastern, Dr. Carr is a co-founder of the Health and Wellness Design Lab at CAMD鈥檚 Center for Design, and holds faculty scholar appointments at the Global Resilience Institute and Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research and affiliate appointments in the Masters of Urban Planning and Policy program and Health, Humanities, and Society program.
FARHANA FERDOUS
Howard University
Dr. Farhana Ferdous is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Howard University whose interdisciplinary research explores the relationships among health, the built environment, and environmental gerontology. Her scholarship examines how healthcare facilities, neighborhood environments, and community infrastructure shape health outcomes, well-being, quality of life, and the lived experience of aging.
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A central emphasis of her scholarship is the role of design in supporting healthy aging, cognitive health, social engagement, and person-centered care for older adults, with particular attention to individuals living with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease and related dementias (ADRD). Drawing on extensive international research and professional experience across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, Dr. Ferdous brings a global perspective to addressing complex challenges at the nexus of architecture, aging, and public health. Her work advances evidence-based design strategies that promote health equity, age-friendly communities, dementia-supportive environments, and improved care settings for historically underserved and marginalized populations, including African American older adults.
Dr. Ferdous鈥檚 research has been supported by numerous prestigious organizations, including the Fulbright Program (Austria Award), the Graham Foundation, the Alzheimer鈥檚 Association, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Toyota Foundation, the Nuckolls Fund, the Academy of Architecture for Health Foundation, and Grantmakers in Aging. She is also a recipient of the Health and Aging Policy Fellowship and the American Association of University Women Fellowship. In addition, she is the co-editor of two scholarly volumes:听Re(Designing) the Continuum of Care for Older Adults听(Springer, 2023) and听All In: All-Inclusive Engagement in Architecture听(Routledge, 2021). Through her scholarships and public engagement, Dr. Ferdous is committed to advancing inclusive, evidence-based design practices that improve health, well-being, and quality of life across the lifespan.
VALERIE GREER
University of Utah
Valerie Chang Greer, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB, NOMA is an Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Architecture at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on the discovery and application of new knowledge to advance healthy aging through design.
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An overarching goal of this work is to positively impact health by advancing an understanding of how places support physical and mental well-being in later life. Greer uses participatory research methods to examine aging in place, age-friendly communities and mental health and design. Her co-edited book 鈥淎ge-Friendly Ecosystems: Environments for Equitable Aging by Design鈥 (2024) considers the anchor institutions of neighborhoods, campuses and health systems as place-types uniquely positioned to catalyze healthy aging. She is a co-director of the Healthy Aging Resilient Places (HARP) Lab, and a founding member of the Design Institute for Health Resilience (DIHR) at the University of Utah. Greer draws on her background as an architect and Vice President at HOK to teach design studios and professional practice at the undergraduate and graduate levels. She advises students and leads guest workshops across disciplines. Greer serves as the Board President of ASSIST Inc., an independent non-profit Community Design Center that provides supports emergency home repairs and adaptations for aging in place. Additionally, she serves as the Board President of NOMA Utah, an award-winning chapter that brings mentoring, networking, licensing exam study sessions and Project Pipeline to the Salt Lake City design community. In 2026, Greer was recognized with the Dean鈥檚 Special Achievement Award for her work on NAAB Accreditation. Greer enjoys hiking, skiing, paddle boarding and golfing. She is a leader of her daughter鈥檚 Girl Scout troop.
TASOULLA HADJIYANNI
University of Minnesota
Dr. Tasoulla Hadjiyanni is Northrop Professor听and Distinguished Global Professor of Interior Design听at the University of Minnesota. A refugee from Cyprus, she started to unravel how听spatial determinants of health intersect with displacement in her听book 鈥淭he making of a refugee 鈥 Children adopting refugee identity in Cyprus鈥 (Praeger, 2002).
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Exposing how the trauma of displacement carries through for generations and the role of housing in the process, the book听reinterprets refugee consciousness from a separate identity to resistance to adversity.
As founder of听Culturally Enriched Communities, Dr. Hadjiyanni advocates for听built environments听where everyone听can thrive. Committed to community engagement, she uses her social science background to structure interdisciplinary research projects that transform into platforms for people whose voices are little known to share their stories 鈥 refugees, immigrants, families facing poverty, sex trafficking survivors, and children with mental health challenges. Her work has been published in numerous journals and edited volumes, including a TEDx Minneapolis talk on the kitchen table that draws from her latest book 鈥淭he right to home – Exploring how space, culture, and identity intersect with disparities” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Featuring stories of Hmong, Somalis, Mexicans, Ojibwe, and African Americans in Minnesota, the book argues that elements of home interiors can support or suppress meaning-making processes and delineate the production of health, income, educational, and developmental disparities.
To broaden her scholarship鈥檚 reach, Dr. Hadjiyanni is currently translating her research and pedagogies into a documentary film where two previously unhoused single mothers living in supportive housing connect with interior design students to inspire design interventions that can strengthen mental health and well-being.
Dr. Hadjiyanni holds a Ph.D. in Housing Studies from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Science in Urban Development and Management along with a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University.
ZORANA MATI膯
Northeastern University
Dr. Zorana Mati膰 is a Visiting Associate Teaching Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Northeastern University, Core Faculty with the Center for Transformative Media, and Adjunct Faculty at the Boston Architectural College. Her work is multi-scalar, nested at the intersections of design, human behavior, and health and well-being.
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She examines how people, the built environment, and behavioral choices interrelate, developing solutions that support health, improve experience, and promote safer behavior across scales from urban neighborhoods to healthcare facilities.
Her ongoing research focuses on gentrification, health, spatial justice, and public space use in legacy communities — particularly in historically Black neighborhoods in Atlanta and Boston’s Chinatown. The Chinatown work is a multi-year, community-based participatory initiative funded by a Northeastern Tier-1 Interdisciplinary Research Grant, conducted in partnership with Chinatown HOPE, a coalition including the Asian Community Development Corporation, A-VOYCE, and Pao Arts Center. The project documents how parks, plazas, and gathering spaces support or undermine well-being in a neighborhood facing environmental health disparities and disinvestment, developing design strategies grounded in community priorities.
Her parallel research examines spatial design at the scale of healthcare facilities, focusing on infection control, healthcare worker safety, and caregiver well-being in critical care environments. This work was funded by CDC and Johns Hopkins and has been published in leading design and medical journals including HERD, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Dr. Mati膰 received her B.Arch and M.Arch from the University of Belgrade and a Ph.D. in Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where her dissertation on the Atlanta Beltline was supported by a Ph.D. Fellowship and received the 2018 EarthShare Award. She was named 2020 Researcher of the Year by the Center for Health Design and serves as Research Chair on the Board of the Foundation for Health Environments Research.
RODRIGO PANTOJA听
Tecnol贸gico de Monterrey
Rodrigo Pantoja-Calder贸n is a Full-Time Professor and former Director of the Architecture Program at Tecnol贸gico de Monterrey in Quer茅taro, M茅xico, and an architect and landscape architect with twenty years of integrated practice at the intersection of architecture, landscape urbanism, and socio-ecological governance. Educated at Drury University, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, and Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, his work develops nature-based and participatory strategies to strengthen resilience, spatial justice, and water governance in the peri-urban territories of the Global South.
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He is the Director and Founder of EVO-A-LAB, an architecture and landscape research practice working at the convergence of sustainable architecture, landscape design, and nature-based solutions for public agencies, private developers, and international organizations such as the German development agency GIZ. An Honorary Professor in the Psychology Department at Bangor University in Wales, he was named one of Mexico’s “10 Promising Voices in Architecture” by Revista Obras and has collaborated with offices including Shigeru Ban Architects and Wiel Arets Architects.
Rodrigo’s scholarship advances a central thesis: that the built environment is, in effect, public health infrastructure, and that cities can be designed as urban ecosystems that sustain community wellbeing. His peer-reviewed work includes a 2025 article in Land (MDPI) co-authored with Diana Garc铆a and Rob Roggema. Among his current efforts is the Ruta Azul Living Lab, a water-sensitive urban design initiative developed by a multidisciplinary team at Tecnol贸gico de Monterrey under an institutional innovation grant.
His submission to the Academy for Public Scholarship, Spatial Determinants of Health, extends collaborative work with Dr. John Parkinson at Bangor University into how the design of urban environments shapes physical and mental health outcomes鈥攁 coherent agenda in which design, ecology, pedagogy, and public health converge.
TERRI PETERS
Toronto Metropolitan University
Terri Peters, PhD, ARB, is an Associate Professor of Architectural Science at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is a UK-registered architect with a PhD in sustainable housing renovation from Denmark.
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Her research and teaching bridge architecture, building science, and human health and wellbeing. She is a WELL AP Accredited Professional and over the last decade has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications about healthy housing. She edited Design For Health: Therapeutic Approaches to Sustainable Architecture (Architectural Design, 2017), coining the term 鈥淪uperarchitecture鈥 to describe architecturally significant spaces that actively improve human health. She co-authored Computing the Environment (Wiley, 2018), an analysis of how digital simulation tools are used by designers in practice to create adaptable, high-performance spaces.
Dr. Peters investigates how sustainable and small-scale design interventions can reduce chronic stress and improve people鈥檚 comfort and quality of life. A recent project on healthy high density housing focused on strategies for better urban apartment balconies. She has an ongoing collaborative project adapting trauma-informed design principles for long-term care homes for people experiencing homelessness. With her team she has developed and tested ways to evaluate both building performance and lived experience together using Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) to uncover how spatial design shapes people’s quality of life. Her interdisciplinary projects have been funded by all three branches of Canada鈥檚 Research Councils, securing grants from SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR. Currently, she leads the TMU team on an $8.4 million multi-university Partnership Grant examining concepts and metrics for quality in Canada鈥檚 built environment. With interdisciplinary collaborators and student researchers from public health and urban design, she evaluates designs and methods for quality, equity, and inclusion in public buildings and spaces along Toronto鈥檚 waterfront.
SARAH RUEL-BERGERON
Kean University
Sarah Ruel-Bergeron, RA is an award-winning Lecturer at Kean University鈥檚 Michael Graves School of Public Architecture, where she teaches architectural seminars and studios focused on the intersection of health, equity, climate change and architecture. She is a licensed architect whose global health practice examines how the built environment shapes pathways to communicable, noncommunicable disease, and poor mental health outcomes, especially in low-income or at-risk communities.
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Her approach to tackling urban health inequities is through transdisciplinary and collaborative research teams.听
Her active projects include a healthy housing and climate adaptation initiative with community-based organizations and residents of the Bairro da Paz favela, in Salvador, Brazil, and a John S. Watson Institute for Urban Policy and Research-led, HUD-funded community visioning project in Trenton, NJ 鈥 the Coalport Neighborhood Revitalization Planning Project. Her previous work with ARCHIVE Global (now the International Society for Urban Health) received numerous awards for the implementation of housing interventions that improve health outcomes in at-risk communities. These include replacing dirt floors with concrete in Savar, Bangladesh to prevent diarrheal disease and respiratory infections, and reducing mosquito breeding sites in Abidjan, C么te d’Ivoire to prevent dengue, malaria, and other vector-borne diseases.听听
Ruel-Bergeron was recently recognized for her service to Kean University with the 2025 Dr. Stephen Kubow Presidential Excellence Award for Service, and for her scholarship with the 2025 Faculty Research Award for Urban Research (Honorable Mention). Her publications and conference presentations advocate for working closely with community-based organizations, working through challenges and opportunities in the implementation of healthy housing projects, and the important lessons learned from residents as part of a critical feedback loop. She has participated in expert group meetings with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and UN-Habitat representing the discipline of architecture within the social and structural determinants of health to public health practitioners, policymakers, and multilateral organizations. She has substantial proficiency working and teaching in multiple languages (English, Spanish and French) as well as across disciplines both in her partnerships and within her teams.
KORYDON SMITH
University at Buffalo
Korydon Smith is professor and past chair of the Department of Architecture, and cofounder of the Community of Excellence in Global Health Equity at the University at Buffalo. He conducts research on design for diversity, health, and social justice, with an emphasis on conflict survivors, refugees, and people with disabilities.
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Smith holds an Ed.D in higher education leadership and a professional M.Arch degree. He is the author/editor of eight books and, among other national recognition, recipient of two national book awards and seven awards for outstanding teaching. Having been named to the Fulbright Specialist Roster, Smith has worked with international organizations, government organizations, and community partners to carry out research, implementation projects, and capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States.
CHRISTINA CHI ZHANG
Lehigh University
Christina Chi Zhang (she/her) is Assistant Professor at Lehigh University Department of Art, Architecture, and Design, where her research and practice center on reconstruction, care, and healing in post-traumatic landscapes. She has worked alongside people living through the aftermath of war, displacement, and structural violence鈥攊n Bosnia, Rwanda, Kenya, and now locally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania鈥攅xploring how architecture participates in relational healing and how architects can work with affected communities without extracting their stories or reproducing harm.
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Zhang’s work moves across multiple formats: scholarly writing, community exhibitions, traveling installations, and built work. Her ongoing research with disabled residents of Bethlehem investigates distributed care hubs鈥攖he informal networks of mutual aid and spatial practice through which disabled people sustain health, belonging, and daily life outside of institutional frameworks. This work argues that healthy cities must recognize and support existing relational care networks, and that designers can make them visible and stronger. The research has been shared publicly through Toward a More Inclusive Bethlehem, an exhibition series hosted in local community coffee shops, bringing findings back into the neighborhoods where the research was made.
Her recent collaborative built projects include , a rammed earth community kitchen designed and constructed with Deaf New Americans in Syracuse, and , a traveling installation created with displaced youth to document longing, memory, and the spatial imagination of home. Zhang鈥檚 built projects treat making as a form of co-creation rather than professional service.
Zhang鈥檚 work has been recognized by the AIA CNY Award of Merit, 糖心vlog Collaborative Practice Award, the AIA Henry Adams Medal, and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. She holds a Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Arts from Yale University.
The Academy for Public Scholarship on the Built Environment reflects the work of the 2025-2026 糖心vlog Research and Scholarship Committee, which has been charged with leading 糖心vlog鈥檚 efforts to support faculty in scholarly endeavors; monitoring and assessing peer-review and recognition programs; and recommending actions to advocate for architectural scholarship.
2026-2027 糖心vlog Research & Scholarship Committee Members:
- Ian Caine, University of Texas at San Antonio (Co-Chair)
- Anne-Catrin Schultz, Wentworth Institute of Technology (Co-Chair)
- Mara Marcu, University of Cincinnati
- Dahlia Nduom, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Champaign - Pari Riahi, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Traci Rider, North Carolina State University
- Staff: Eric Ellis, 糖心vlog Senior Director of Operations and Programs
Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, 糖心vlog is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together 糖心vlog schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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