Newsletter v041: The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics
Dear School of Architecture Community,
The leaves on the trees outside my office signal the arrival of fall in Pittsburgh and with it, the cadence of the second half of the semester. From our first-year undergraduates, comprising one of our largest cohorts in recent years, to upper-level B.Arch and M.Arch students in our Advanced Option Studios, to students across our graduate programs, the school is humming. We are entering one of my favorite times of the semester, when student projects gain momentum, studios begin to fill with work, and making spaces reveal the enduring value of learning hands-on, in community.
I recently had the pleasure of welcoming families of first-year students to campus as part of CMU's Family Weekend. Our event was fresh on the heels of the first years' kayaking trip along the Allegheny River and was a great opportunity to share how Pittsburgh serves as an indispensable teacher and laboratory for our programs. While the first-year students are learning about urban edge conditions, our first-semester M.Arch students are imagining alternative, transitional futures for Pittsburgh's Chateau neighborhood. Our local activities are complemented by engagements further afield. Students in Professor Juney Lee's advanced option studio, "From Steel to Timber City — Reimagining Mass Timber Structural Systems," traveled over fall break to the Southeastern U.S. to visit some of North America's largest mass timber manufacturers and fabricators. And just this week, second-year M.Arch students hosted Pecha Kucha presentations to share their international summer travel research.
This fall, I am honored to step into the role of Associate Head for Design Fundamentals. Having spent 18 years on this faculty, I am continually inspired by the interactions within our community and the profound potential of architecture, and I am eager to bring this perspective to my new responsibilities. I've convened a group of faculty across the undergraduate programs to review our core curriculum and recommend a framework to inform design education in our bachelor's programs. Concurrently, we've begun making incremental improvements to our collective spaces to enhance the student experience and foster a culture of public exhibition and exchange. I am excited to contribute to the school in this capacity and look forward to working closely with students, faculty, and staff across our programs.
In this issue, we direct attention to the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, an internationally renowned research center at Carnegie Mellon Architecture with a noteworthy legacy of advancing sustainability and advanced technologies within the built environment — and with alumni, like Siliang Lu (PhD-BPD '19), extending that legacy around the world. It's fitting within this year's theme of research that we feature one of the enduring anchors of architectural research with a demonstrated impact well beyond our institution.
From the hands-on masonry build of our second-year students to the Remaking Cities Institute's faculty dialogues on our urban futures, the school is deeply engaged in its mission. I encourage everyone to walk through the studios and hallways in the coming weeks to witness the incredible work taking shape. Here's to a productive and inspiring conclusion to the fall term.
Jeremy Ficca
Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Fundamentals
Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Fundamentals
When it comes to research at Carnegie Mellon Architecture (CM–A), there is no entity as storied as the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD).
Housed in the iconic Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace atop Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, the CBPD has spent nearly half a century leading global thought and action in the domains of high-performance buildings, the workplace of the future, and energy and resource effectiveness.
The Center has its roots in the 1970s, when CM–A launched two major research-centric Ph.D. programs: one in computational design and another in advanced building studies (now building performance and diagnostics). These two were later followed by a third Ph.D. program in architecture, engineering, and construction management. All three programs actively engage graduate students at the master's and Ph.D. levels in research with clients in government and industry.
According to University Professor and CBPD Co-Director Vivian Loftness, from its inception the CBPD has been "committed to doing research directly with the decision-making community, advancing innovative systems, design standards and public policy with government, manufacturers and practitioners."
In the 1980s, the CBPD launched the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium (ABSIC), the first National Science Foundation (NSF) university-industry-government consortium partnership and the brainchild of Professor Emeritus Volker Hartkopf. Loftness explains, "at the time, even leading companies and government agencies had tiny in-house research teams and no tradition of funding academic institutions. From the CBPD, ABSIC convened the leaders of companies creating high-performance products and systems several times each year to identify common research goals and pool financial resources to fund that research. Since 1985, the CBPD has brought together more than 50 diverse companies and federal agencies to fund faculty and students to undertake shared research. This led to a transformative tradition of research collaboration among CBPD faculty and students and decision makers from across industry and government."
Soon, a pivotal NSF grant designed the first "industry-university cooperative research centers" focused on the built environment and reinforced the CBPD's critical value. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a long-term research partner, launched its high-performance building initiative in direct response to ongoing ABSIC research.
Throughout its history, the CBPD's collaborative model has been responsive to political and economic realities. "One of the CBPD's strengths," says Associate Professor and CBPD Co-Director Erica Cochran Hameen, "has always been our ability to work with other academic institutions, industry and government — federal, state and local. Because of that long history and our reputation, no matter what's happening in the cycle of economy or government, we can continue the work."
After the 2008 recession, for example, the CBPD proved itself nimble: in partnership with other nearby universities, the Center competed against other research institutions (including the powerhouse state university systems of both New York and California) for a major Department of Energy (DOE) grant to establish a regional hub for energy efficiency research for buildings.
Surprisingly, that five-year research grant went to what Loftness calls "our mid-Atlantic motley crew" — a collaborative team of universities, industries and consultants who set up shop at Philadelphia's Navy Yard and began producing path-breaking research, with Cochran Hameen as the CBPD's boots-on-the-ground leader. Research from that initiative has led decision makers around the globe to understand the costs and benefits of deep energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and environmental sustainability.
The need for the CBPD's research on high-performance buildings and communities is only growing. Along with Assistant Professor and CBPD Co-Director Azadeh O. Sawyer, Loftness and Cochran Hameen seek to broaden and deepen the CBPD's leadership in building research.
"We want people to be healthy and to maintain or improve their quality of life," says Cochran Hameen, "and we can do those things while using less energy." She notes that achieving this convergence requires a broad application of the CBPD's knowledge and resources — not only in high-performance, cutting-edge buildings, but also in the built environments we interact with most: workplaces, homes and, crucially, schools.
Pittsburgh is an important place to lead the work on high-performance, low-energy buildings. Its identity as an emerging tech hub is colliding with the aging of its electrical grid, which limits productivity and raises costs. Recent research from CMU's College of Engineering shows that, in many cases, these costs are disproportionately shouldered by the lowest-income Pittsburghers. Cochran Hameen sees great potential in putting the CBPD's extensive knowledge to work in its own backyard, increasing quality of life and lowering costs for our neighbors.
To this end, Cochran Hameen is undertaking new research emblematic of the CBPD's future direction: one current project, funded by CMU's Block Center for Technology and Society and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), seeks to teach students from any background how to perform qualitative and quantitative indoor environmental assessments and suggest retrofits to transform them into healthy, sustainable, energy efficient, and equitable environments.
As they have always done, CBPD faculty continue to work alongside and mentor master's and Ph.D. students, many of whom have gone on to become the world's foremost experts on building performance and energy efficiency. Considering this legacy and the future of genuinely world-changing research, Loftness reflects, "It's genuinely been a privilege."
Siliang Lu (PhD-BPD '19) is putting her experience in the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD) to excellent use.
During her years working with Associate Professor and CBPD Co-Director Erica Cochran Hameen, Lu focused her Building Performance and Diagnostics Ph.D. research on AI-powered HVAC controls. Now, as a researcher in Bosch's corporate research AI department (formerly in the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence), she has widened her focus: her professional domain includes mobility and consumer goods, as well as building technology.
The variety in her portfolio is a function of her work environment, says Lu: Bosch Center for AI is a diverse research group responsive to the company's needs at any given time. She, for example, has brought her controls-optimization expertise to the domain of mobility, improving chassis controls of steering, braking and suspension. And after Bosch's recent acquisition of Johnson Controls Hitachi's Residential and Light Commercial HVAC business, the HVAC-controls expertise Lu honed during her time in the CBPD has been called upon again.
Whether designing relatively static systems like HVAC or more dynamic mobility systems, Lu attends to a consistent set of algorithmic considerations. As in her Ph.D. work, she designs reinforcement-learning systems that transform data about occupant perception, occupant sensation, and ambient environment into an optimized experience for each user — whether that user is in a workplace or a vehicle.
The CBPD's interdisciplinary and collaborative research models have prepared Lu to appreciate and rely on both inspiration and challenge from colleagues outside of her own area of expertise. She notes, though, that she "cherishes the deep-learning environment in the Center [for Building Performance and Diagnostics]; while all of my current colleagues are AI specialists, not many have backgrounds in building performance. I'm grateful to have been able to discuss and strengthen my ideas with classmates and colleagues in similar domains to mine, before joining such a diverse work environment."
Lu has retained her connection with Carnegie Mellon Architecture and the CBPD, partly through her interactions with Carnegie Mellon's large alumni network. That network has afforded Lu a host of opportunities, including a position as an adjunct research fellow at NYU Shanghai and connections with academic researchers at multiple Asian universities. She was thrilled, for example, to encounter another CBPD alum during a recent work trip to Singapore.
With building performance and AI controls constantly growing in exigence, Lu is glad to know that the CBPD's research has a global reach. "The power of the work and of our alumni network," she says, "is wonderful."
The audience at the M.Arch Travel Award Pecha Kucha event, on October 27, 2025.
M.Arch Students Present Summer Travel Research
On Monday, October 27, eleven recipients of the Master of Architecture (M.Arch) travel awards staged an exhibition and presented their research to the CM—A community. The awardees traveled internationally over the summer to pursue their individual research interests.
The M.Arch program grants travel awards each spring for selected students to support work grounded in architectural design research. The awards facilitate research related to a range of diverse contexts, practices and cultures. Students are encouraged to take on research projects in areas of their choice that will be further developed through research papers, a thesis or independent study.
In the carousel below, learn about the recipients' travel destinations and the research they conducted.
London Public Infrastructure: The In-Between (London, United Kingdom)
Sanjana Bandaru: This research explores how public spaces in dense urban contexts become active zones of everyday life. The study focuses on open spaces between buildings such as courtyards, terraces and plazas, which serve as settings for people to pause, meet, and linger outside private or commercial interiors. Using London as a field site, with a primary focus on the Barbican’s Lakeside Terrace, the project documents patterns of use, movement, and behavior to understand how design and programmatic choices turn transitional areas into lived public spaces. By mapping, observing, and analyzing these environments, the study highlights the subtle architectural and social conditions that make the in-between truly habitable.
Sanjana Bandaru: This research explores how public spaces in dense urban contexts become active zones of everyday life. The study focuses on open spaces between buildings such as courtyards, terraces and plazas, which serve as settings for people to pause, meet, and linger outside private or commercial interiors. Using London as a field site, with a primary focus on the Barbican’s Lakeside Terrace, the project documents patterns of use, movement, and behavior to understand how design and programmatic choices turn transitional areas into lived public spaces. By mapping, observing, and analyzing these environments, the study highlights the subtle architectural and social conditions that make the in-between truly habitable.
Constructing Communities of Synergy (Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica)
Emmaline Hubbs: I traveled to Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, one of the world’s five designated "Blue Zones," where people have consistently been recorded to live the longest and happiest lives. My case studies for observing sustainable community building were Pachamama Ecovillage and the Matambu Reservation of the Chorotega people. Both natural and human systems were observed, including recycling methods, material sourcing, vernacular architecture, composting, food production, water collection, biosphere preservation, and reforestation efforts. Both of these case studies are grassroots communities that are sensitive to the incredible biodiversity that surrounds them and mindful of their consumption habits and waste management.
Emmaline Hubbs: I traveled to Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, one of the world’s five designated "Blue Zones," where people have consistently been recorded to live the longest and happiest lives. My case studies for observing sustainable community building were Pachamama Ecovillage and the Matambu Reservation of the Chorotega people. Both natural and human systems were observed, including recycling methods, material sourcing, vernacular architecture, composting, food production, water collection, biosphere preservation, and reforestation efforts. Both of these case studies are grassroots communities that are sensitive to the incredible biodiversity that surrounds them and mindful of their consumption habits and waste management.
Claude Parent Architecture: Fonction Oblique (Paris, France)
Tai Le: This research project focuses on Claude Parent’s architectural legacy in Paris, specifically his groundbreaking theory of the Fonction Oblique. Through site visits, documentation, and on-site analysis of his built works such as the Maison de l’Iran, Drusch House, and Bordeaux-Le Pecq House, the project investigates how oblique surfaces reshape bodily movement and spatial perception. The study aims to contextualize Parent’s radical ideas within contemporary architectural discourse and explore their relevance for future design approaches.
Tai Le: This research project focuses on Claude Parent’s architectural legacy in Paris, specifically his groundbreaking theory of the Fonction Oblique. Through site visits, documentation, and on-site analysis of his built works such as the Maison de l’Iran, Drusch House, and Bordeaux-Le Pecq House, the project investigates how oblique surfaces reshape bodily movement and spatial perception. The study aims to contextualize Parent’s radical ideas within contemporary architectural discourse and explore their relevance for future design approaches.
Pine-ing for the Skies: Reaching New Heights with Mass Timber (Oslo, Brumunddal, Magnor and Bergen, Norway)
Lora Marks: This comparison study traces Norway’s thousand year evolution of tall timber construction — from the Gol Stave Church, built around 1200 using a post and beam system of sills, staves, and clamping beams — to Mjøstårnet, the world’s tallest timber building at the time of its completion in 2019. Traveling through Norway, I was interested in how a timber rich country continues to explore the structural and cultural potential of wood, a material that still performs primarily in compression just as it did centuries ago. Both structures embody Norway’s enduring relationship and innovation with wood. The Stave Church’s pegged joints and layered bracing find a modern counterpart in Mjøstårnet’s CLT floors and glulam framing.
Lora Marks: This comparison study traces Norway’s thousand year evolution of tall timber construction — from the Gol Stave Church, built around 1200 using a post and beam system of sills, staves, and clamping beams — to Mjøstårnet, the world’s tallest timber building at the time of its completion in 2019. Traveling through Norway, I was interested in how a timber rich country continues to explore the structural and cultural potential of wood, a material that still performs primarily in compression just as it did centuries ago. Both structures embody Norway’s enduring relationship and innovation with wood. The Stave Church’s pegged joints and layered bracing find a modern counterpart in Mjøstårnet’s CLT floors and glulam framing.
Urban Sociology in Architecture: Communal Space & Social Housing (Paris, France)
Sarah Meronek: By traveling to Paris, I had the opportunity to not only experience exemplary projects in person, but I was also able to meet with local individuals to understand their personal interpretations. Communal space and social housing are important in terms of how the spatial qualities are directly felt by inhabitants; therefore, it cannot ever completely be understood from afar. Through my explorations, I gained knowledge on how to better implement strategies for similar communities.
Sarah Meronek: By traveling to Paris, I had the opportunity to not only experience exemplary projects in person, but I was also able to meet with local individuals to understand their personal interpretations. Communal space and social housing are important in terms of how the spatial qualities are directly felt by inhabitants; therefore, it cannot ever completely be understood from afar. Through my explorations, I gained knowledge on how to better implement strategies for similar communities.
Brutalist Buenos Aires: Between Monumentality and Everyday Life (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Reese Posey: This travel study explored the rise of concrete and Brutalism in Argentina through the analysis of precedents in Buenos Aires. The building subjects of this study defied architectural and conceptual norms for their individual building typology at the time they were constructed and continue to serve as important infrastructural elements for the city despite their age. The Chacarita Cemetery, National Library of Argentina, and Bank of London and South America are a few of the projects that I studied in detail. The research examined how these buildings reflect both the local context and the broader global movement from which they emerged.
Reese Posey: This travel study explored the rise of concrete and Brutalism in Argentina through the analysis of precedents in Buenos Aires. The building subjects of this study defied architectural and conceptual norms for their individual building typology at the time they were constructed and continue to serve as important infrastructural elements for the city despite their age. The Chacarita Cemetery, National Library of Argentina, and Bank of London and South America are a few of the projects that I studied in detail. The research examined how these buildings reflect both the local context and the broader global movement from which they emerged.
Architecture as Temporal Experience: Building, Repairing and Transitioning Through Space (Venice, Italy)
Anoushka Sethi: This research examines how architecture exists not as a fixed object, but as an unfolding process, one that evolves through acts of making, mending and moving. Using three national pavilions from the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 — Switzerland, Denmark and Germany — the study explores how buildings embody time through construction, repair and inhabitation. The Swiss Pavilion reimagines authorship and reinterpretation as temporal acts of re-making; the Danish Pavilion turns maintenance into a visible choreography of care; and the German Pavilion transforms movement and climate into lived, sensory experience. Together, these pavilions reveal architecture as a living continuum, where permanence is not defined by stillness, but by the capacity to adapt, evolve, and endure over time.
Anoushka Sethi: This research examines how architecture exists not as a fixed object, but as an unfolding process, one that evolves through acts of making, mending and moving. Using three national pavilions from the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 — Switzerland, Denmark and Germany — the study explores how buildings embody time through construction, repair and inhabitation. The Swiss Pavilion reimagines authorship and reinterpretation as temporal acts of re-making; the Danish Pavilion turns maintenance into a visible choreography of care; and the German Pavilion transforms movement and climate into lived, sensory experience. Together, these pavilions reveal architecture as a living continuum, where permanence is not defined by stillness, but by the capacity to adapt, evolve, and endure over time.
Shifting Material Systems: Deconstruction, Adaptive and Material Reuse in Practices of ROTOR and MVRDV (Denmark, Belgium & Netherlands)
Sharvi Shah: My travel across Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands revealed deconstruction and reuse as an alternative to demolition, supporting the circular economy by reducing waste in construction. The research looks at MVRDV’s designs, which often integrate recycled materials, modular systems, and flexible layouts, enabling future adaptability. The research also looks at the practice of ROTOR and the various resource chains and the processes involved in making the materials available for reuse.
Sharvi Shah: My travel across Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands revealed deconstruction and reuse as an alternative to demolition, supporting the circular economy by reducing waste in construction. The research looks at MVRDV’s designs, which often integrate recycled materials, modular systems, and flexible layouts, enabling future adaptability. The research also looks at the practice of ROTOR and the various resource chains and the processes involved in making the materials available for reuse.
Tending to Life: Ecology of Maintenance in Japan (Japan)
Rupal Singh: When maintenance is a way of life, architecture unfolds in dramatically different ways. Looking at systems across Japan, I observed maintenance as coexistence, cyclical, reciprocal, modular, sometimes laborious, aging and living.
Rupal Singh: When maintenance is a way of life, architecture unfolds in dramatically different ways. Looking at systems across Japan, I observed maintenance as coexistence, cyclical, reciprocal, modular, sometimes laborious, aging and living.
Digital Modeling Systems: Critical Cartographies to Make Spatial Power Legible (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Ishanesu Tendayi: This research traces fieldwork in Denmark and conversations with DLR Group, GXN/3XN, Henning Larsen, Exigo, BLOXHUB, and Copenhagen Solutions Lab, where practitioner interviews grounded technological claims in real workflows and governance constraints. This insight is translated into layered analog-to-digital maps (experiential, epistolary, sensory, conversational) that render data as legible narratives and decision trails. At stake is a critical use of digital modeling systems as civic instruments; interfaces that expose intention, evidence, and consequence so spatial power can be read, challenged, and re-authored.
Ishanesu Tendayi: This research traces fieldwork in Denmark and conversations with DLR Group, GXN/3XN, Henning Larsen, Exigo, BLOXHUB, and Copenhagen Solutions Lab, where practitioner interviews grounded technological claims in real workflows and governance constraints. This insight is translated into layered analog-to-digital maps (experiential, epistolary, sensory, conversational) that render data as legible narratives and decision trails. At stake is a critical use of digital modeling systems as civic instruments; interfaces that expose intention, evidence, and consequence so spatial power can be read, challenged, and re-authored.
Materiality and Human-Centered Design: Alvar Aalto (Finland)
Joanne Zeng: This travel study explored how Aalto’s architecture creates intimacy through material, light and circulation. His buildings demonstrate that human-centered design is not about scale alone, but about how space responds to the body and unfolds through movement. The work reveals a subtle way of designing that feels lived, attuned, and deeply connected to place.
Joanne Zeng: This travel study explored how Aalto’s architecture creates intimacy through material, light and circulation. His buildings demonstrate that human-centered design is not about scale alone, but about how space responds to the body and unfolds through movement. The work reveals a subtle way of designing that feels lived, attuned, and deeply connected to place.
Tai Le's models on display at the M.Arch travel award exhibition, October 27, 2025.
2025 M.Arch Travel Award Recipients
• Sanjana Bandaru (London, United Kingdom): London Public Infrastructure: The In-Between
• Emmaline Hubbs (Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica): Constructing Communities of Synergy
• Tai Le (Paris, France): Claude Parent Architecture: Fonction Oblique
• Lora Marks (Oslo, Brumunddal, Magnor and Bergen, Norway): Pine-ing for the Skies: Reaching New Heights with Mass Timber
• Sarah Meronek (Paris, France): Urban Sociology in Architecture: Communal Space & Social Housing
• Reece Posey (Buenos Aires, Argentina): Brutalist Buenos Aires: Between Monumentality and Everyday Life
• Anoushka Sethi (Venice, Italy): Architecture as Temporal Experience: Building, Repairing and Transitioning Through Space
• Sharvi Shah (Denmark, Belgium & Netherlands): Shifting Material Systems: Deconstruction, Adaptive and Material Reuse in Practices of Rotor and MVRDV
• Rupal Singh (Japan): Tending to Life: Ecology of Maintenance in Japan
• Ishanesu Tendayi (Copenhagen, Denmark): Digital Modeling Systems: Critical Cartographies to Make Spatial Power Legible
• Joanne Zeng (Finland): Materiality and Human-Centered Design: Alvar Aalto
Note on our name change
You may have noticed the name "e-SPAN" disappear from this newsletter. It is now called the Carnegie Mellon Architecture Newsletter (CM—A Newsletter). the CM—A Newsletter will preserve the legacy of the e-SPAN Newsletter with exclusive in-depth interviews and updates from the school, under a refreshed name.
Faculty & Staff News
- October 1, 2025: Assistant Professor Vernelle A. A. Noel is named Art Papers Chair for SIGGRAPH 2026. SIGGRAPH is one of the premier conferences for computer graphics and interactive techniques.
- October 2, 2025: Special Faculty Vicky Achnani speaks at the Yale School of the Environment, delivering a talk on "Low-Carbon Practices and Design-Build Community Projects."
- October 3, 2025: Professor and Head Omar Khan receives the Facade Tectonics Institute's 2025 Vitruvian Award in the "Collaborative Achievement" category for his work on the "Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop" (ACAW) in collaboration with John Krouse of Boston Valley Terra Cotta. The workshop, which ran from 2016-24, developed a collaborative research and education model dedicated to advancing the use of terra cotta in contemporary architecture through experimentation, interdisciplinary exchange, and material innovation.
- October 6, 2025: Eric Fisher and Adjunct Faculty Bea Spolidoro of Fisher ARCHitecture present during PechaKucha Night, part of Pittsburgh Architecture Week 2025. During the event at Lolev Bar in Lawrenceville, they present 20 slides x 20 seconds each about architectural models and how they help architects in testing ideas.
- October 9, 2025: Eric Fisher and Adjunct Faculty Bea Spolidoro of Fisher ARCHitecture present a lecture with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (PHLF) at the Frick Museum Auditorium as part of Pittsburgh Architecture Week 2025. The objective of the lecture is to inspire American architects — and their clients — to adopt an archaeological lens by drawing on European lessons in urbanism, active preservation, and adaptive reuse to result in architecture that is contextually grounded and timeless.
Alumni News & Updates
We invite all Carnegie Mellon Architecture alumni to keep us up to date on their awards, professional milestones and more. Send us your updates with a brief description and link to more information.
- Earlier this month, we were touched to welcome so many alumni back to Pittsburgh for an evening remembering Art Lubetz. Thank you to those who joined us. CMU Libraries' Architecture Archives highlighted Art Lubetz's oeuvre — a tangible opportunity to remember his legacy.
Read more about Art Lubetz's life
Remembrances of Art Lubetz - CMU Alumni Awards Nominations Due November 30, 2025
The CMU Alumni Association proudly honors members of the CMU community who have made an impact on their industries, their communities, their alma mater and others' lives around the world. Nominate an alum in categories including Outstanding Service and Exceptional Achievement, Alumni Achievement Award, Alumni Service Award, Recent Alumni Achievement Award and Recent Alumni Service Award. Check the Hall of Honor to view past CMU Alumni Award recipients when considering your nomination. Read more about the awards on the CMU website. To nominate a candidate:
1. Complete the CMU Alumni Awards Nomination Form.
2. Gather a professional summary.
3. Collect at least one (1) letter of support.
4. Submit the nomination form and attach the professional summary and letters of support. - Mark Chambers (B.Arch '01, Heinz ’02) has been appointed Executive Director of Terreform ONE, a national nonprofit design group advancing ecological design in cities. A registered architect and nationally recognized leader in environmental policy, social impact design, and urban innovation, Chambers will lead the organization into its third decade of pioneering research, public art, and design at the intersection of biology, product development, and the built environment.
- Jerry (Lingshui) Wang, AIA, LEED AP (B.Arch '11), Senior Project Manager at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, is responsible for the delivery of New York City’s first all-electric lab building, currently under construction. This is the first step of many in moving towards a fossil fuel free future.
- Jinmo Rhee (PhD-CD '24), Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, and Professor Emeritus Ramesh Krishnamurti receive the Michael Breheny Prize 2024 for their paper in the journal "Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science." The prize is awarded annually for the most innovative paper in the journal during the preceding year.