chair
Dr. Federica Goffi is Professor of architecture, and Co-Chair of the PhD & MAS program in Architecture at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She holds a PhD from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She published book chapters and journal articles on the threefold nature of time-weather-tempo. Her book, Time Matter[s]: Invention and Re-imagination in Built Conservation: The Unfinished Drawing and Building of St. Peter’s in the Vatican, was published by Ashgate in 2013. She holds a Dottore in Architettura from the University of Genoa, Italy. She is a licensed architect in her native country, Italy.
Ahmed Elsherif is a PhD student at Carleton University. He holds a BFA (2012) from Alexandria University, Egypt, where he worked afterwards in academia at different universities. He received the Erasmus+ grant (2016), and was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to pursue his MDes (2018) at Iowa State University. Prior to joining CU, Ahmed worked as a Teaching Assistant in the United States, where he received his MFA and MS Arch (2021) from Iowa State University.
Isabel Potworowski is a PhD candidate at Carleton University's ASAU. She completed her Bachelor's in Architecture at McGill University (2011), her professional Master's in Architecture at TU Delft (2015), and obtained a Master's in Architectural History + Theory at McGill (2020). In the Netherlands, she worked at Barcode Architects, the International New Town Institute, and Mecanoo Architecten. She has also been a contributing editor for the international architecture magazine C3 since 2015. Her research interests revolve around architecture’s capacity to foster well-being and communicate meaning through atmosphere and aesthetic experience.
Ushma Thakrar is a PhD student in Architecture at Carleton University. Her current research explores practices of cleaning and space-making, as well as notions of hygiene and cleanliness and the politics of recognition in colonial contexts. She holds a MA in History and Critical Thinking in Architecture from the Architectural Association and a MS in Urban Planning from Columbia University, as well as a BAS in Design from Carleton University. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she worked for several cultural institutions and publications as an editor.
Kristin Washco is a PhD Candidate at the ASAU, Carleton University. She received her Master’s in Architectural History + Theory from McGill University and her professional degree in Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Kristin is a Registered Architect in New York and spent seven years practicing in New York City before relocating to Canada. Her professional work with NOROOF Architects, DXA Studio and MADERA has won multiple awards, including the AIA Award of Excellence. Her research interests are centered around the synesthetic experience of architecture, methods of architectural representation, and the translation from page to built work.
collaborators
Rana Abughannam began her PhD studies at Carleton University in 2017. In 2012, she obtained her professional degree in Architectural Engineering from Birzeit University. She was granted her post-professional Master’s degree from the History and Theory of Architecture Program at McGill University in 2013. Rana has taught at the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the Canadian University Dubai and at the Department of Architecture at Birzeit University.
Émélie Desrochers-Turgeon is a PhD candidate at the ASAU, Carleton University. She explores issues of settler colonialism, landscape representation, language, architectural imagination, and the display of architecture. She completed a BA in Environmental Design at UQÀM and an MA in Architecture at McGill University. Before starting her doctoral studies, she worked in various design firms specializing in industrial design, architecture and landscape architecture in Montreal and Berlin.
Sena Kurcenli Koyunlu is a Ph.D. student at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University. She obtained her master’s degree in the Department of Architecture, Restoration Program from Istanbul Technical University in 2022. Sena is a registered urban planner in Turkey and specializes in heritage planning. Before joining Carleton, Sena had various experiences in the conservation of architectural heritage and archaeological excavations in Turkey. Her research interests are concentrated on the rural and cultural landscape of Cappadocia and the digitization of architectural heritage in Cappadocia, Turkey.
Ryan Stec is a Part-Time Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Ottawa, and the Artistic Director of Artengine, a center for art, design and research based in Canada's capital. He became a PhD Candidate at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism in 2017. His research is focused on the political potential of temporary art and design interventions in public space.
Dr. Pallavi Swaranjali graduated from the PhD in Architecture at the ASAU, Carleton University, Canada. She has a Bachelors in Architecture and Masters in Industrial Design from India where she has professional experience as a licensed architect. Her research interests revolve around the intersection between architecture and storytelling, various modes of non-conventional architectural representation which combine the normative and the fantastical, and how they transform architectural creation and experience.
faculty advisors
[2024-present Agora III] Dr. Menna Agha is is an architect and researcher. She is an assistant professor of Design and Spatial Justice at Carleton University. Menna holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Antwerp and a Master of Arts in Gender and Design from Köln International School of Design. In 2019/2020, she was the Spatial Justice Fellow and a visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon. She is a third-generation displaced Fadicha Nubian, a legacy that infuses her research interests in race, gender, space, and territory. Among her publications are: Nubia still exists: The Utility of the Nostalgic Space; The Non-work of the Unimportant: The shadow economy of Nubian women in displacement villages; and Emotional Capital And Other Ontologies of the Architect.
[2022-2023 Agora II Workshop] Dr. Sheryl Boyle is Director of the Carleton Sensory Architecture & Liminal Technology Lab. She supervises immersive materials research and innovative design for manufacturing and assembly processes. Her work brings design processes together with materiality alongside digital and manual fabrication in the sensory and experimental realm of research creation. She collaborated with ABB Robotics and ETH-Zurich's DFAB lab using industrial robotics to assemble prefabricated construction systems. Recent projects include a MITACS with Ottawa's Advanced Building Innovation Company and Assistant Professor Jerry Hacker, and an industry partnership with the Canadian Precast Prestressed Concrete Institute using topology optimization software to reduce concrete use in structures. In 2022/23 CSALT used robots to 3D print clay in a topology optimized form for the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery "Robotic Clay" exhibit (Waterloo, ON). She completed a PhD in Sensory Studies at Concordia University titled "Fragrant Walls and the Table of Delight: Sensory (re)construction as a Way of Knowing, the case of Thornbury Castle."
[2022-2023 Agora II Workshop] Dr. Suzanne Harris-Brandts research brings together design and the social sciences to explore issues of power, equity, and collective identity in the built environment, focusing primarily on the geography of post-socialist Eurasia. It covers topics as broad spanning as iconic city building, contested place meanings, and design’s relationship to conflict-induced displacement, often foregrounding the role of designer agency. Suzanne holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Studies from MIT and a Master of Architecture from the University of Waterloo. She is a licensed architect (OAA), certified LEED AP BD+C, and founding partner of Collective Domain, a practice for spatial analysis, urban activism, architecture, and media in the public interest. Previously, Suzanne taught at MIT’s School of Architecture & Planning, the International Black Sea University, and the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture.
[2023 Agora II Moderator] Dr. Lisa Moffitt’s design, research and teaching are prompted by a deep compulsion to make things – paintings, photographs, buildings, installations, speculative design projects, physical models, and environmental instruments – that question how architecture materially alters, impacts, and constructs new environments in light of climate change. Lisa founded her design practice, Studio Moffitt, in 2008 after working as Senior Designer at PLANT Architect, Inc. in Toronto. She was most recently a tenured academic at the University of Edinburgh, where she also completed a PhD architecture by design exploring the use of physical environmental models as architectural design tools. She has published widely on this topic, including in Landscape Research, Technology | Architecture + Design, Architectural Research Quarterly, and Architecture and Culture. She is currently completing a book titled Architecture’s Model Environments as part of UCL Press’s Design Research in Architecture series. Lisa was Washington University’s Fitzgibbon Scholar; RISD’s AIA Henry Adams Gold Medal Recipient; and received the University of Edinburgh’s David Willis prize for doctoral research.
[2022-2023 Agora II Workshop] Dr. Jesse Stewart is a composer, percussionist, artist, musicologist, and educator. His music has been documented on over twenty recordings including Stretch Orchestra’s self-titled debut album, which was honoured with the 2012 “Instrumental Album of the Year” Juno award. He has been widely commissioned as a composer and artist, and has performed and recorded with musical luminaries including Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Dong-Won Kim, Hamid Drake, and many others. OttawaJazzScene describes him as “one of the most innovative musicians in Canada" (2015).
He is a professor of music in Carleton University’s music program and an adjunct professor in the visual arts department at the University of Ottawa. He has published widely on subjects including jazz, improvisation, hip hop, sound art, community music, and experimental music in academic journals including American Music, Intermedialities, Black Music Research Journal, and Contemporary Music Review.
curatorial advisor
[2020-2023 Agora I Exhibition] Dr. Monica Eileen Patterson is Assistant Director of Curatorial Studies in the Institute for the Comparative Study of Literature, Art, and Culture, and Associate Professor in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan. She is co-editor and contributing author of two books: "Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places" (Palgrave, 2011) and "Anthrohistory: Unsettling Knowledge, Questioning Discipline" (University of Michigan Press, 2011). As a scholar, curator, and activist, she is particularly interested in the intersections of memory, childhood, and violence in postcolonial Africa, and the ways in which they are represented and engaged in contemporary public spheres.
conversationalists
[2019-2020] Nicolas Arellano Risopatron is an architect from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he was Adjunct Professor of Building Techniques and Construction and worked at the Timber Innovation Centre. He worked at NORR Limited and currently is a research team lead at CIMS. In addition, he teaches BIM Fundamentals at Algonquin College and started his PhD at Carleton University focusing on building technologies and digitalization.
[2019-2020] Dr. Brynne Campbell received her PhD at the ASAU, CU in 2023. Her research focuses on the Canadian architecture profession’s historical use of marketing, as discussed through professional journals. She is the co-organizer of POP // CAN // CRIT, an annual symposium that examines contemporary issues, and proposes new solutions to the future of architecture practice. Brynne has a MArch and BArch.
[2019-2020] Kristen Gagnon received her B.A.S, M.Arch and MAS from Carleton University. Her research explores the role of the popular architecture critic within architectural decision-making. Kristen works as a Program Officer at the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and spent time at the National Capital Commission and as the Project Manager for the New Paradigm/New Tools for Architectural Heritage in Canada SSHRC-funded grant. Kristen is the architecture editor for Spacing magazine and published in Canadian Architect, Building, Canadian Interiors, Award, ArchDaily, and 150 Stories. She presented her research internationally and taught both design and academic courses at the Azrieli School of Architecture + Urbanism. Kristen founded the architecture symposium POP // CAN // CRIT in 2016.
[2019-2020] Jenan Ghazal is a PhD Candidate in architecture at the ASAU, CU, Canada. She holds a Bachelor (2012) and Master degrees (2014) in Architecture from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Lebanon where she practiced as a licensed architect. She holds a MAS from CU (2016). She is a doctoral student, since September 2016, exploring theories of spatial violence and conflict focusing on Beirut as a case study.
[2019-2020] Katie Graham is an Instructor in the Bachelor of Media Production and Design program in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. She is currently completing her PhD in Architecture at Carleton with a focus on the relationship between architecture and virtual reality storytelling. Prior to her appointment as an instructor, Katie has been actively involved for a decade with Carleton Immersive Media Studio, a research lab affiliated with the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University with a focus on how advanced digital technologies and hybrid forms of representation can reveal the invisible aspects of architecture.
[2019-2020] Dr. Jesse Rafeiro graduated from the PhD in architecture at the ASAU, CU, Canada in 2021. His research investigating the role of fiction in architectural pedagogy within the context of the Anthropocene. His PhD research explores the intersection of posthumanist education studies and narratology of the nonhuman within the context of architectural education and representation. Jesse also has a research background in digital tools between CIMS (Carleton), FARMM (McGill) and Instituto Superior Técnico Lisboa where he has collaborated in several research projects for heritage documentation and dissemination.
[2019-2020] Dr. Miquel Reina Ortiz earned a PhD in Architecture (2015-2024) at the ASAU at Carleton University. His research concerns the relationship between different scales of intervention within the context of the historic city. He collaborates with the Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) in the development of new digital workflows applied to heritage conservation. He studied architecture and a MsC in Restoration and Rehabilitation at ETSA Barcelona (UPC).
[2019-2020] Dr. Jorge Rivera Gutierrez was an Ontario Trillium Scholar, and graduated from the PhD Program in Architecture at the ASAU. He is an architect working both in the design-build and videography fields. He began his doctoral studies in 2016 at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University. In 2007, he graduated from the Architectural History and Theory master’s program at McGill. His Guadalajara-based office, Departamento de Arquitectura, has been primarily invested in developing a design-build practice in collaboration with local craftspeople. He has also ventured along his brothers in making short films, video documents and video installations. His first video installation debuted at the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture, within the Mexican pavilion. Interested in the intersection of narrative, memory, time, and architecture. His research focuses in exploring the capacity of film to convey the experience of place, and in turn as means to inform architectural thought and imagination.
