GSD faculty are thought leaders who provide the intellectual underpinnings of the School’s cutting-edge pedagogy and research; they also ensure excellence in core disciplinary knowledge and innovation through research. Seven alumni are among the promotions and appointments recently announced by Dean Mohsen Mostafavi, which were effective July 1, 2017. They join the ranks of a growing body of exceptional alumni who choose to come back to the GSD to teach and help keep the GSD on the forefront of design pedagogy.

 

Architecture

Jennifer Bonner MArch ’09 and Jon Lott MArch ’05, assistant professors of architecture, have been appointed directors of the GSD’s Master in Architecture program. Lott will work primarily with students in the MArch I and MArch I-AP program, and Bonner will focus on students in the MArch II program.

Bonner is director of MALL and has served as assistant professor of architecture since 2015. She is a recipient of a series of awards, including Architectural Review‘s Award for Emerging Architecture and two Faculty Design Awards from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. As a GSD graduate, she was awarded the James Templeton Kelley Prize for her project Assemblage of Twins. Bonner edited the GSD’s Platform 9: Still Life and curated the related exhibition (Spring 2017, Gund Hall Gallery).
Lott is principal of PARA-Project, PC. and co-founder of Collective-LOK. He is recipient of the Design Vanguard award (by Architectural Record), the New Practices New York award (by the American Institute of Architects), and the Architectural League Prize (by the Architectural League of New York), and was a MoMA/PS1 Young Architects finalist. He is co-editor of the GSD’s forthcoming tenth edition of Platform.

Jeffry Burchard MArch ’08 has been appointed Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture. Burchard has served as a design critic at the GSD since 2012 and offers instruction in core architecture studios, professional practice, thesis, and independent studies. He regularly lectures and publishes in academic and professional settings on topics including material dexterity, existing building transformation, and architecture’s imprecision, and has served as an invited studio critic throughout North America.

Desk crit with Megan Panzano

Desk crit with Megan Panzano MArch ’10

Megan Panzano MArch ’10 has also been appointed Assistant Professor of Architecture. She has served as a multi-year design critic at the GSD and has taught GSD design studios concurrent with her practice since 2014. An award-winning designer and educator, she is the founder and principal of studioPM, a design practice invested in research and production at multiple scales. She has been recognized for her teaching in the Harvard Undergraduate Architecture Studies track, receiving the Harvard Excellence in Teaching Award for the past two years.

 

Landscape Architecture

Silvia Benedito MAUD ’04 has been promoted to Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture. Benedito has served as Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the GSD since 2012. She is also co-principal of OFICINAA, an architecture, landscape and urban design practice based in Cambridge (MA) and Ingolstadt, Germany. Benedito’s practice examines the role of atmosphere as sensory envelope and political milieu in the built environment.

Danielle Choi MLA ’08 has been appointed Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture. At the GSD, Choi has served as design critic in landscape architecture and as the 2016-2017 Daniel Urban Kiley Fellow. Choi was formerly a senior associate at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), where she facilitated the dialogue between research, analysis, and design. Beginning in 2011, Choi managed the Waller Creek project in Austin, Texas—the restoration of an urban creek and design of a new public realm.

Gareth Doherty DDes ’10, assistant professor of landscape architecture and senior research associate, has been appointed the Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture program. Dr. Doherty’s research and teaching focus on the intersections between landscape architecture, urbanism, and anthropology. His recent studios and courses include the First Semester Core Landscape Architecture Studio, Design Anthropology: Objects, Landscapes, Cities; and the Ecological Urbanism Field Research Seminar.