Adjunct Faculty

Architecture and Community Design Adjunct Faculty

Catherine Chang is a practicing professional and instructor in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Through her firm Catherine Chang Design Studio and her role as an educator, her attention is focused on the role of buildings and streetscape design in supporting rich, active pedestrian environments. Recipient of several design awards, she studied architecture and landscape architecture at UC Berkeley. Prior to starting her own practice, she worked at Calthorpe Associates and other notable urban design firms. She is currently an adjunct faculty instructor at USF Architecture and Community Design and UC Berkeley Extension Landscape Architecture Certificate programs.

Mike Larkin attended the School of Architecture at the University of Kansas and received his BArch degree in 1987. His education included a year of study abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland and a summer study program near Sienna, Italy.  He moved to San Francisco in 1993 where he worked with Heidi Richardson Architects for three years. Larkin returned to academia from 1996 to 1999 to study affordable housing and urban design at the University of California, Berkeley. He presently focuses on affordable urban housing with the Studio 3 class at the University of San Francisco.  Mike Larkin started his own practice in 1999 and has been specializing in single family and multi-family residential design in Bay Area cities.

Grace Lee has worked broadly as an architectural and urban designer in the Bay Area for the past 15 years. As Vice President of Carrasco and Associates Architects, a 10-person architecture and urban design firm based in Palo Alto, CA., she manages urban design, mixed-use development and multi-family housing projects. She is a member of the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board and a LEED Accredited Professional.

As a lecturer and studio instructor for the past ten years, she has taught undergraduate and graduate design studios in the Departments of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of San Francisco. She received Masters degrees of Architecture and of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley and Bachelors degrees of Art History and of French Literature at Stanford University.

Biliana Stremska is a visual artist and environmental designer. She has
worked as a painter, sculptor, interior designer and architectural designer.
Currently she is focused on public art projects--in the summer of 2008 she completed a 118 foot long mural for Children's Fairyland in Oakland. In addition to the University of San Francisco, she has taught architectural drawing at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill and at the University of California, Berkeley.  Biliana has a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design from University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.  She has also studied art and design
in Poland and in her homeland, Bulgaria.

Matthew Peek studied architecture at U.C. Berkeley, Columbia, and Yale, with a Fulbright at the University of Venice titled “Community Architecture in the Communications Age.” His internationally recognized theoretical and built work explores the interdependency of community, technology, and ecology. A balance of construction projects, competitions, and publishing form the basis for his practice, Studio Peek Ancona, a research and design firm with projects ranging from interiors built with the exclusive use of sustainable materials to civic buildings combining innovative structure and natural facade systems.

Renata Ancona completed her architectural studies summa cum laude at the University of Florence, as well as architectural, urban design, and structural engineering studies at the University of Pescara and U.C. Berkeley. Her work at Studio Peek Ancona is characterized by a contemporary aesthetic that focuses on a refinement of ecological materials founded on academic research. Her restoration study of the Laurentian Library formed a critical basis for inventions in modern curtain walls. Her recent work includes a series of published international projects for revitalizing urban waterfronts.

Hana Mori Morrison received a Masters of Science in Structural Engineering, Materials and Methods (2000) followed by a Master of Architecture (2002) from the University of California, Berkeley. Her engineering research investigates locally available, low-cost methods of reinforcing adobe wall construction systems for improved seismic performance.  Her work has contributed to ongoing research and application by field engineers in earthquake-prone regions such as Iran, India, Pakistan and China, where these construction systems are pervasive.  Her firm, Hana Mori Design, has completed over 50 addition, remodel, and new construction projects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as collaborations with other firms. Hana joined the USF Art + Architecture Dept in Fall of 2005, and the Physics Dept the following year, and has taught design studio, physics, and engineering courses for architecture students, introducing new courses to broaden the curriculum in the engineering area.

Steven I. Doctors maintains a project management practice (The CM+ Group, LLC) in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a licensed architect and general contractor. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Architecture from the University of California (Berkeley), where he is also a PhD candidate in Architecture. His research interests include the history of architectural practice, design theory and methods, project delivery strategies, early twentieth-century Italian architecture, and sacred spaces. He is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Project Management Institute.

Leslie Geathers has been involved in the design and construction industry for over 20 years. She received her Bachelor of Architecture professional degree from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California in 1989. Since graduation Ms. Geathers has maintained her keen interest and commitment to socially and environmentally responsible methods and systems as they apply to our built environment. She has attended The San Francisco Institute of Architecture, University of California Berkeley Extension, and Merrit College to continue her education in such subjects as Permaculture, Urban Ecology, Ecological Architecture, Organic Architecture, and Sustainable Systems. Most recently she completed a certificate program in Organic Farming & Gardening through the University of California Santa Cruz Extension. In 1998 she joined Spaces For Children, a branch of McCamant & Durrett Architects, led by Louis Torelli, M.S.Ed., the nationally known premier child development environmental designer. She became Project Manager and Designer in the creation of the 17,000 s.f. World Bank Children’s Centers, which are notably the most environmentally focused childcare facilities in the United States. In 2000 she joined the nationally renowned ecological design firm of Arkin~Tilt Architects.  As their project manager she had the opportunity to develop projects which utilized passive & active solar design solutions, reclaimed & sustainable wood products, straw bale, rammed earth, efficient framing systems, radiant heating systems, on demand water heating, and green finishes.

In 2002 she started her own Ecological Design & Planning firm, focusing on residential, community, and child care development projects. Since 1997 she has served on the advisory board for the Merrit College Environmental Science & Ecological Design Program, and became an Adjunct Professor in 2002. She currently teaches Green Design and Urban Agroecology. In 2006 her role as an Ecological Design instructor expanded to the new Architecture & Community Design Program at the University of San Francisco, where she currently teaches Sustainable Design.

John Klopf is a licensed architect and member of the AIA with fifteen years in the field. He lives, along with his wife and their two young sons, in San Francisco’s Mission District. He was born in Cleveland Ohio, earned a Bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in East Asian Studies at Harvard College, and received his Master of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. He has also studied at Nanjing University in China. While at Berkeley, he won a competitive travel fellowship for nine months of independent architectural study in Japan and Europe. He focused his study on light and materials in architectural space creation. He has taught architecture classes at  UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco, and is now practicing professionally in San Francisco with a focus on sustainability and warm, contemporary residential design.

Paul Craig Okamoto has committed his professional architecture career to designing dwellings, mixed-use buildings, and neighborhoods> in ways that optimize environmental and social conditions. With his San Francisco-based firm Okamoto Saijo Architecture, he designs affordable housing developments, custom passive solar residences, community-based neighborhood plans, and researches on sustainable design issues.  He received his Bachelor of Architecture from the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, in 1981, and his Master of Architecture from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 1988.  He was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design during 2000-2001. Before establishing OSA in 1991, Okamoto worked with several prominent architects including Paolo Soleri and Peter Calthorpe.  He is the architect of several passive solar residences, including the Rubissow Farmhouse in the Napa Valley, and the Johnson-Theis Residence in Sebastopol, which have been featured in various publications. 

He is currently President of the Board of Directors of Urban Ecology, and on the Board of SPUR (San Francisco Planning & Urban Research), co-chairing its Sustainable Development Committee. Previously, he was on the board of directors of Greenbelt Alliance, the steering committee for the Urban Habitat Program, and an appointed member to the City & County of San Francisco’s Environment Commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Advisory Council.  He is a licensed California architect and a LEED Accredited Professional with the U.S. Green Building Council.