Trained as an architect, Behnaz Farahi is an award winning designer and critical maker based in Los Angeles. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts and Practice from USC School of Cinematic Arts. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Design, California State University, Long Beach.

She explores how to foster an empathetic relationship between the human body and the space around it using computational systems. Her work addresses critical issues such as feminism, emotion, perception and social interaction. She specializes in computational design, interactive technologies, and digital fabrication technologies. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Farahi has won several awards including the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Digital Design Award, Innovation By Design Fast Company Award, World Technology Award (WTN). She is a co-editor of an issue of AD, ‘3D Printed Body Architecture’ (2017) and ‘Interactive Futures’ (forthcoming).

Biayna Bogosian’s academic and professional background extends in the fields of architecture, computational design, environmental design, data science, spatial computing, and media arts. Biayna’s interdisciplinary research has allowed her to understand innovation in design and technology within a broader environmental context and explore data-driven and citizen-centric approaches to improve the built environment.

Biayna is currently an Assistant Professor of Architectural Technology at Florida International University (FIU), where her interdisciplinary research is supported by a number of National Science Foundation grants. She has also taught at Columbia University GSAPP, Cornell University AAP, University of Southern California SoA, and Tongji University CAUP among other universities. Biayna studied architecture at Woodbury University SoA and Columbia GSAPP. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Media Arts and Practice program at the USC School Cinematic Arts.

Jane Scott is an Academic Track Fellow in the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment at Newcastle University, UK. Her research is located at the interface of programmable textiles, architecture and biology. Jane’s work challenges the established understanding of smart materials for architecture; applying principles derived from biology to the design of environmentally responsive textile systems. Jane is currently developing a new generation of Living Textiles for the built environment. These adaptive responsive bio/knit composites will provide a programmable interface for both indoor and outdoor environments.

Before joining Newcastle University, Jane was an academic at the University of Leeds and held a Visiting Research Fellowship in Biomimicry at Central Saint Martins. She completed her PhD, Programmable Knitting, at the Textiles Futures Research Centre, Central Saint Martins. In 2016 this work was awarded the Autodesk ACADIA Emerging Research Award. Her work has been exhibited widely and she has presented her research at major international events.

Jose Luis García del Castillo y López is an architect, computational designer and educator. He advocates for a future where programming and code are tools as natural to artists as paper and pencil. In his work, he explores how interfaces for concurrent human-machine collaboration can lead to increased levels of creativity for both parties involved.

Jose Luis is Lecturer in Architectural Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, from where he holds a Doctor of Design and Master in Design Studies in Technology degrees. He is also the co-founder of ParametricCamp, a digital platform to promote computational literacy amongst designers.

Kathrin Dörfler is an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich, setting up a research group for Digital Fabrication at the Department of Architecture and the Department of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering. At the interface between architecture and robotics, Kathrin researches digital design and robot-supported construction processes in architecture and their synthesis in new technologies. She is particularly interested in exploring the architectural implications of mobile robotics and augmented reality technologies for additive manufacturing in construction and researching methods for their implementation.

She has a Master’s degree in Architecture from TU Vienna (2012) and a PhD degree from ETH Zurich (2018), carried out at Gramazio Kohler Research at the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich.

June A. Grant, RA, NOMA, is a visionary architect, Founder and Design Principal at blinkLAB architecture; a boutique research-based architecture and urban design studio that re-thinks conventional approaches. Launched in 2015, BlinkLAB was created based on Ms. Grant’s 20 years experience in architecture, design and urban regeneration of cities and communities. Her design approach rests on an avid belief in cultural empathy, data research and new technologies as integral to design futures and design solutions. Because we are designers committed to new forms of knowledge through making, we prefer to situate ourselves in the middle of catalytic design - where new challenges and emerging opportunities are addressed through multi-layered thinking and design.

blinkLAB has three mandates - A commitment to Design Exploration, Advocacy for Holistic Solutions and the Integration of Technology as a central component for a regenerative society.

Ms. Grant is also the immediate Past-President of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects (SFNOMA); Board member of ACADIA, a YBCA100 honoree, 2020 CEDAW Human Rights honoree, and the 2020, 10th Annual J. Max Bond Jr. Lecturer.

Stefana Parascho is a researcher, architect, and educator whose work lies at the intersection of architecture, digital fabrication and computational design. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Princeton University where she founded the CREATE Laboratory Princeton and is co-leading the PhD program in Technology of Princeton’s School of Architecture. Through her research, she has explored multi-robotic fabrication methods and their relationship to design.

Stefana completed her doctorate in 2019 at ETH Zurich, Gramazio Kohler Research. Previously, she received her Diploma in Architectural Engineering in 2012 from the University of Stuttgart and worked with DesignToProduction Stuttgart and Knippers Helbig Advanced Engineering.

Vernelle A. A. Noel is a design scholar, architect, artist, and founding Director of the Situated Computation + Design Lab at the University of Florida. Her research examines traditional and automated making, human-computer interaction, interdisciplinary creativity, and their intersections with society. Her researchwork has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Mozilla Foundation, and ideas2innovation (i2i), among others. Dr. Noel builds new expressions, tools, and methodologies to explore social, cultural, and political aspects of making and computational design for new reconfigurations of practice, pedagogy, and publics. Her 2015 TEDx Talk is titled, “The Power of Making: Craft, Computation, and Carnival.” She holds a PhD in Architecture: Design and Computation from Penn State University, an MS from MIT, a BArch. from Howard University, and a Diploma in Civil Engineering from Trinidad & Tobago.

Cameron holds a B.A. in Architecture and Mathematics from Yale University and is a candidate in the new M.S. Matter Design Computation research program at Cornell. A prior associate in Jenny Sabin Lab, their research interests include optimization and heuristics.