People
Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor | CV
Nathan is a researcher with a broad academic and professional background involving structural engineering, architecture, and building science. Prior to joining the Department of Architectural Engineering at Penn State, he completed a PhD in Building Technology at MIT in 2019. Nathan was a part of the Digital Structures Research Group in the MIT Department of Architecture from 2014-2019, also earning an SMBT degree from MIT in 2016. His research seeks to understand how structural considerations interact with other performance and architectural criteria in conceptual building design, and how computation can play a role in the creative process. Nathan earned a BSE in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University with certificates in Architecture & Engineering and Urban Studies. He has worked for BuroHappold in Boston as a computational designer, and on building energy retrofit projects for Elevate Energy in Chicago. He was the recipient of the 2016 Structural Engineering Travel Fellowship from the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation.
Jonathan Broyles
PhD Candidate | Architectural Engineering
Jonathan is a PhD student with research interests involving structural engineering, architecture, and acoustics. Current research projects include understanding trade-offs between structural optimization and acoustics within the Department of Architectural Engineering and investigating perceived annoyance and preference of different transportation modes within the Acoustics Department. Prior to coming to the Department of Architectural Engineering and Acoustics Department at Penn State, he completed his BS in Civil Engineering, with an emphasis on structural engineering, and a minor in music performance (percussion) from Clemson University in 2018. Jonathan passed his Fundamentals of Engineering Exam in 2018 and has worked on structural design of buildings and bridges with Kimley Horn and Broyles and Associates P.C.
MS Thesis: Structural-Acoustic Optimization of Shaped Concrete Floors in Buildings
Laura Hinkle
PhD Candidate | Architectural Engineering
Laura is a PhD student co-advised by Dr. Julian Wang, director of the Archilambda Lab at Penn State. She completed an integrated Bachelor and Master of Architectural Engineering with a focus in lighting and electrical systems in 2020. She interned at Lutron Electronics in Coopersburg, PA as a lighting controls specifier and as an electrical engineer at Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers in Boston and SmithGroup in Detroit. In 2019, she received the Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY) Student Achievement Award. As a Penn State Engineering Ambassador, she leads K-12 STEM outreach and campus tours. Her research interests include optimizing building envelopes for daylighting and thermal performance.
Hossein Zargar
PhD Candidate | Architectural Engineering
Hossein is a Ph.D. student and research assistant in the Architectural Engineering department. With a background in computational design and robotic fabrication, he is looking for intersections between data-driven design and multiple disciplines using parametric prototyping for exploration and optimization. His current research focuses on using building constructability knowledge in multi-objective design optimization. The research seeks to integrate robotic capabilities into parametric optimization to define a multi-disciplinary design workflow for autonomous constructability at the building scale. Hossein holds an M.Sc. in Architectural Technology with a major in Digital Design and a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Tehran.
Amir Shargh Ghasem
PhD Student | Architectural Engineering
Amir is a PhD student interested in earthquake engineering and applications of machine learning for structural engineering. His research focuses on developing an optimization-based design methodology for mass timber lateral systems in buildings, considering both risk and sustainability design goals. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering from Shahrood University of Technology and an MS in Earthquake Engineering from the Ferdowi University of Mashhad.
Ali Alhussain
MS Student | Architectural Engineering
Ali is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Architectural Engineering at PSU. His research interests include computational design and automation in construction, specifically additive manufacturing techniques like 3D concrete printing. For his master's thesis, he is developing a data-driven prediction model that can help in optimizing printing parameters for 3D concrete printing to enable the printing of freeform structures. He graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Architectural Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), where he concentrated on building science. Following graduation, he was employed by KFUPM as a Graduate Assistant, enabling him to continue his higher education and aim for a future in academia.
Adriana Abrahao
Visiting PhD Student | Architectural Engineering
Adriana is a PhD student with research interests in structural engineering, building design, and computational design. She is from Brazil, where she completed her master’s degree in Structural Engineering at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in 2021 and her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Uberlandia (UFU) in 2017. Since 2021, she has been working as a software developer for TQS, a company that develops the most widely-used software for building design in Brazil, encompassing modeling, analysis, design, detailing, and drawing.
Ian Self
BAE/MS Student | Architectural Engineering
Ian is currently an undergraduate student in the Architectural Engineering Department, with a concentration in structural engineering. He is part of a team using parametric modeling to explore building elements for their acoustic and structural characteristics. Ian also works on campus as a Teaching Assistant at the Learning Factory, the University’s makerspace. His goal is to graduate as a part of the integrated BAE/MS program and go on to work in the theme park industry doing structural design for rollercoasters.
Morgan Prichard
BAE/MAE Student | Architectural Engineering
Morgan studies architectural engineering with a concentration in structures and intends to graduate through the integrated BAE and MAE program. She aids in mass timber structures research while specifically looking at their embodied carbon. Morgan also acts as a Teaching Assistant for AE 297 – an introductory Python programming class.
Group Alumni
Stephanie Bunt
PhD | Architectural Engineering
Next Affiliation: Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of New Mexico
Dissertation: Progression of Designer Behavior when Exploring Digital Building Design Spaces
Samantha Leonard
PhD | Architectural Engineering (advised by R. Solnosky + K. Parfitt, affiliated with BDG)
Next Affiliation: Project Engineer at RDH Building Science
Dissertation: Parametrically-informed Early Design Guidance for Mass Timber Floors for Embodied Carbon and Structural Design
Farzaneh Oghazian
PhD | Architecture (SOFTLAB, collaborated with BDG)
Next Affiliation: Assistant Professor of Architecture at Louisiana State University
Isabelle Hens
MS | Architectural Engineering
Next Affiliation: BuroHappold Engineering; University of California, Berkeley
Thesis: Design Space Exploration for Comparing Embodied Energy in Tall Timber Structural Systems
