Faculty

Catherine Lusheck is Chair of the Department of Art + Architecture and Associate Professor of Art History & Museum Studies. She holds a doctorate in History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a specialist in early modern European art and curatorial practice. Her research interests include Renaissance drawings culture, early modern visual rhetoric and the classical tradition, and artistic emulation and self-representation in the art of Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640...

Seth Wachtel is the program director of the Architecture & Community Design program. He has worked in architecture and construction in India, Colombia, Haiti, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Zambia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His focus is on culturally and environmentally appropriate design and the development of innovative construction techniques that produce regenerative and aesthetically fitting buildings and landscapes for human environments.

Professor Wachtel...

Tanu Sankalia is a tenured full professor in the Department of Art + Architecture, and coordinates the Urban Studies Concentration within the Environmental Studies Program. He teaches courses in urban planning and design, architectural and urban history, and architectural design. He was trained in urban design at UC Berkeley, and in architecture at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, from where he graduated with a gold medal for the best diploma thesis.

Professor Sankalia's research and...

In 2018, Professor Ahlblad finished graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, and moved to San Francisco to teach and work on sustainable architectural projects for healthcare and education clients. As an undergraduate, she completed coursework in tandem at MIT's Media Lab, School of Architecture + Planning, and Department of Economics.

In New York, she worked with Steven Holl Architects and TEN Arquitectos on projects for NASA, a library in Malawi, and a residential project in...

Graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florence, with architectural, urban design, and structural engineering studies at the University of Pescara, and a grant to research at U.C. Berkeley. Principal of Studio Peek Ancona, a research and design firm combining architecture, planning, and interiors, her extensive experience in the U.S. and Europe is characterized by a contemporary aesthetic focusing on a refinement of sustainable materials. Ancona’s use of technology is founded on...

Brian Bartz is a new media artist and educator. His practice interrogates digital network technologies through a material lens, grappling with the politics surrounding their popular conception as immaterial and abstract. His sculptures, animations, and installations engage with our status as digital subjects and the endemic anxieties therein, seeking to situate them within larger frameworks of corporate and state surveillance, extractive industry, and the inconspicuous embedding of devices...

Roger Bass's architectural career spans over five decades with built work from New England to Florida and from Washington, DC to Portland, OR.

Andrea studies the built environment at the intersection of the industrial and urban, where borders and edges are blurred. She is most interested in what is left behind when the industrial use has waned or disappeared and how this affects the fabric of our cities, towns, and rural landscapes. Through photography, both abstract and representational, she aims to capture these intersections and document their relevance.

In addition to teaching architecture, she is a registered architect and has...

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...

Angelo Claudio is a licensed architect and landscape architect in California. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from the University of California.  At his firm Claudio Studio Architects, his design work focuses on weaving together passive and active strategies to increase energy efficiency, in tandem with, reducing operational and embodied carbon. His objective is to intertwine the built and natural...

Niki has worked in the graphic design industry for over 30 years, utilizing a wide-range of skills in graphic design, creative direction, copy writing, and general chaos organization to create logos and collateral, publications and catalogs, web site designs, and even a short film and half a dozen or so commercial videos.

Niki earned a degree in English from California State University, Sacramento and thrives in the beautifully fuzzy place between the two-dimensional print and online world...

Nathaniel Eck is a highly effective and driven project management and design professional with a passion for making the world a better place for all. He has worked on over 60 public infrastructure design, engineering, and construction projects. Projects have ranged in length from one year to three years. Individual project budgets have ranged from $500k to over $65MM with a total portfolio of over $150MM. He has coordinated and interfaced with top engineering, architecture, construction, and...

June Grant received a master's degree in Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture and her undergraduate degree from Baruch College, CUNY with a focus on International Economics and Finance with a minor in Studio/Ceramic Art. She is an architect with a long interest in the space of transactions and form. Upon leaving Steinberg Architects and AECOM, where she was a Principal and Associate Principal, respectively, she launched blink!LAB with 15 years' experience in design. Her architecture...

Kerstin Hellmann is a practicing professional in the field of architecture and design. Her interest as an architect is in space and light and a sensitivity to the surrounding natural and urban environment. She is a licensed architect in California and her firm Kerstin Hellmann Architecture is an underwriter of the AIA 2030 Commitment for carbon neutral building.

Kerstin came to the US as a DAAD fellow to study urban design at UC Berkeley with a focus on landscape architecture. Prior to coming...

Robert Jackson has a diverse professional background ranging in scale from small single-family homes, to mixed-use commercial and residential towers to large scale urban design. Project Type Experience Includes: Transit Oriented Development, High Rise, Adaptive Re-use, Affordable Housing, Senior Housing, Luxury Housing, Urban Design, Office, Entertainment (Theater), Urban Revitalization, and Schools. He specializes in architectural computer drafting with a strong background in 3D modeling and...

Yim Gloria Jew has been teaching since graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a licensed architect and also EDAC certified, Evidence Base Design Research. Her areas of teaching in architecture include undergraduate and graduate design studios, thesis, contemporary theory in urbanism and architecture, professional practice, and materials and methods. In addition, she has taught in programs of ethnic studies with a focus on cultural identity and social justice.

In...

Dijon Marcelle Jones is a manufacturing engineer and BIM/VDC expert with over 10 years of industry experience and a proven ability to develop technical solutions and to anticipate potential challenges and/or opportunities.

Yu-Chung’s diverse background exposes him to the intersecting relationships among humans and nature, science and art, logic and intuition, at various scales. He passionately explores the possibilities in shaping our world and brings them into reality with thoughtful details.

His design philosophy focuses on people. Design is not only the beautiful backdrop of human activity; it is the essential wheel driving life-changing economic and social improvements.

Jackson Lindsay is a Project Manager based in the East Bay, designing single-family and multi-family residential projects. Through graduate school, he focused on the link between architecture and US housing policy and developed research and designs oriented around the commons and communal living.

Jules Litman-Cleper (they/she) is a New Media Artist and Educator born and raised in the Bay Area (the unceeded land of the Ohlone). Their work seeks to understand our sensory and cognitive inter-dependency on technological and ecological systems. They enjoy working with Spatial Simulation, Natural Computation and Generative Algorithms. They have exhibited work at Krowswork, Aggregate Space, New York Studio School, with performances at The Lab, ATA, SFEMF, CCRMA and Gray Area Center for the Arts...

Fernanda Lopez Ornelas is a Mexican biologist and environmental manager who has always been passionate about nature and environmental phenomena. She earned her biology degree in Mexico and completed her Master of Science in Environmental Management at USF, where she developed a strong interest in geospatial technologies and GIS. She is proud to be part of the first group to obtain the GIS Certificate recently developed by USF’s Geospatial Analysis Lab (GsAL). Lopez Ornelas has a particular...

Carol Mancke is an architect, artist, and educator with more than 30 years professional experience. She has worked in architecture practices in London, San Francisco and Tokyo and has taught architecture at the the Nagaoka Institute of Design, the University of Western Australia and Kingston University London, where she ran the March (Design) program from 2004 until 2014. Carol is a chartered British architect and licensed in California and Japan.

For the past 30 years Leslie has devoted her career to designing buildings and spaces for seniors and special needs housing communities. Her award-winning work involves the full continuum of care facilities, from active adult to senior centers, independent living, assisted living, Alzheimer’s care, skilled nursing environments, and life plan communities. Considered an expert in her field, Leslie regularly speaks at national conventions concerning the latest trends in senior living design and she...

Professor Hajo Neis teaches urban architecture and urban theory with emphasis on city building, the art of building, and urban structures integration. He has previously taught at the University of California, Frankfurt University, the Prince of Wales Urban Design Task Force, and the Technical University of Dresden. His main interest in research includes, the question of quality and value in architecture and urban structure and, the question of process and processes, which create quality in...

Jeff Oberdorfer is a national leader in sustainable, affordable housing. He uses his courses in the architecture and urban planning programs to provide students with design guidelines for multifamily housing in an urban setting, with projects ranging from a studio to an urban, multifamily development. The LEED fellow believes it is essential for an architect to understand housing design.

Okamoto has committed his professional architectural career to designs that optimize environmental and social qualities. With his San Francisco-based firm, he has worked on affordable housing, community centers, passive solar residences, and community-based neighborhood plans. He is a licensed California architect and a LEED Accredited Professional.

Before establishing his own practice in 1991, Okamoto worked with several prominent architects including Paolo Soleri and Peter Calthorpe. He is...

Benjamin Okenwa is currently a doctoral candidate at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom. His research interest includes built environment and health with a focus on urban open spaces, computation, social and behavioral factors. Benjamin’s research critically examines salutogenic responses to the built environment through the lens of design, with an objective to investigate design strategies that respond to contemporary social and behavioral lifestyles as...

Matthew Peek studied architecture, urban design, and fine art at Berkeley, Columbia, and Yale, with a Fulbright at the University of Venice. Principal of Studio Peek Ancona, a research and design firm combining architecture, planning, and interiors, he is a licensed architect, member of the AIA, and contributor to international journals of architecture. Peek’s work investigates the use of cutting edge natural and composite materials, ranging from new uses for renewable materials to the most...

Bassel has nearly 30 years of experience in architectural practice since graduating from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he was awarded the Thesis Prize for Design. Prior to establishing Samaha+Hart Architecture in 2007, he worked on numerous projects of various scales, from residential to civic. At Fougeron Architecture Bassel managed the office and served as the Project Architect on two San Francisco Public Libraries, as well as a major housing project for seniors. As...

Rafi Sarkis is a LEED accredited architect.  A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he has practiced architecture in the San Francisco Bay area for over fifteen years.  His architecture firm integrates environmental approaches and technological solutions into the design process. His multinational background and early childhood exposure to archeology in the Middle East and Europe have greatly influenced his contextual approach to architecture and pedagogy. As adjunct faculty at USF...

At the intersection of engineering and design, Andrew Sonta studies what makes our buildings and cities more environmentally friendly and better able to meet our needs. He has published his research in proceedings and journals spanning computer science, civil engineering, and energy efficiency. At USF, he teaches Environmental Control Systems, a course focused on minimizing the active energy requirements for buildings through passive design.

Sonta is currently a research fellow at Stanford...

Nur Yavuz is in the architectural education for 10 years sharing her experience as a practicing architect -New York, Athens and Istanbul- with her students. She led Basic Design and Graduation Studios, aswell as courses on Drawing, Architecture and Cinema and Representation of Time and Space. Her students' work was exhibited in Istanbul Design Biennial, Izmir Archeology Museum and students she has consulted won awards in respectable competitions in Turkey. Nur led many workshops on...

For the past few years, Amy Chang has focused her career on multifamily housing projects, particularly affordable housing, and modular construction.   She’s passionate about creating equitable housing that enriches people's everyday life while contributing to the well-being of the planet.  She believes that the heart of a multifamily building is the sense of community, and it is important for a design to promote a shared community experience, whether it's in the form of open, flex space for...

Jamie Doyle has been working as an architect and teaching for over 30 years in the USA and Ireland. His father was an architect, and at an early age, Jamie became intrigued with architecture and was inspired to follow in his footsteps. Jamie believes architecture can be an art, a science and a platform for change and justice in society.

Bobby Glass teaches Studio One: Drawing & Representation, where students first learn to observe, analyze and represent the built environment by gaining an understanding of basic visual principles, concepts, and modes of architectural representation. Bobby is the founder of Space Open Studio, a landscape design and ecological planning firm based in the Bay Area. He previously worked for Hyphae Design Laboratory, where he integrated landscape architecture with recycled water systems and civil...