The School of Architecture is pleased to announce the following new faculty hires and updates for the upcoming 2021-22 academic year.
Please join us in welcoming the newest additions to our school community. We look forward to their teaching, research, and collaboration in the coming academic year.
Sarosh Anklesaria
M.Arch Program Track Chair and Special Faculty
Sarosh Anklesaria will take over as the Track Chair of the Master of Architecture (M.Arch) program from Kai Gutschow, now Associate Head for Design Ethics, who served in the position since 2017. Sarosh joined the SoA as the T. David Fitz-Gibbon Professor of Architecture in 2020 and he will continue in that position teaching studios and seminars in our design programs.
Sarosh is interested in an expansive notion of architectural agency, one that synthesizes architecture’s formal and tectonic capacities with questions of socio-ecological pertinence. His current design research considers agency across various scales and geographies, to include investigations into the entanglements between justice, ecology, worldmaking, and architecture.
Heather Bizon
Special Faculty
Heather Bizon will take up a fulltime Special Faculty position at the SoA. Heather will teach studios and seminars in our design programs with a focus on developing our thesis option.
Heather is an artist and architect whose work explores the individual's perception of space and public/private domains through new media and technology, sculpture, architecture, and film. She received the SoA’s 2018-19 Ann Kalla Professorship in Architecture. She was previously awarded the Orville Simpson Professorship in Urban Futures at the University of Cincinnati. Heather received her B.Arch from Cornell University and M.Arch II from Yale University.
Tommy CheeMou Yang
2021-22 Ann Kalla Visiting Professor
Tommy CheeMou Yang's research and creative practice focuses on bridging the disciplines of architecture, cartography, and humanities through storytelling and spatial ethnography. He focuses on how cities adapt and change over time through fieldwork, public history, and multi-scale analysis. Tommy received his professional M.Arch degree from Parsons the New School of Design with Distinction and is a recipient of multiple awards and fellowships.
Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland
2021-22 Joseph F. Thomas Visiting Professor
Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland's research and creative practice focuses on understanding and putting into context the experiences of African Americans' relationships to space and place. By applying Black theoretical practices – Afropessimism, Afrofuturism, Necropolitics – he steps outside Eurocentric theory to better understand not only the Black experience, but the experiences of "othered" groups. Jackie received his M.Arch degree from Portland State University and a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Bruce Chan
First Year Studio Teaching
Bruce Chan is a planner and urban designer with a background in architecture whose work centers around re-envisioning the post-industrial American city. Having practiced architecture and planning in Los Angeles and completed his masters research in Urban Design at the SoA, Bruce continues to collaborate with local Western Pennsylvania organizations and municipalities in enhancing and updating communities, with an eye towards preservation, accessibility, and equity.
Tonya Markiewicz
Second Year Studio Teaching
Tonya Markiewicz has worked in architecture for 12 years in NYC and Pittsburgh, specializing in multi-family housing, historic restoration, interior design, and as a sustainability coordinator for LEED projects. She is a graduate architect and project manager at PWWG, where she is currently working on affordable housing projects in East Liberty and the Hill District and designing historic building renovations in Mt. Washington. Tonya is also an active board member of the community development non-profit Braddock Redux.
Jared Abraham
Third Year Studio Teaching
Jared Abraham is an educator and architectural designer based in Pittsburgh. His professional experience includes several years as an Associate at Allied Works Architecture, where he contributed to multiple award-winning projects. Jared has held teaching appointments at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of Cincinnati SAID. He earned his B.Arch from the University of Oregon AAA and a M.Arch from the Yale School of Architecture.
Michael Esposito
Third Year Studio Consulting
Michael Esposito is an environmental designer and building performance analyst passionate about shaping a more sustainable built environment. He has expertise in conceptualizing, analyzing, and detailing climate-responsive building design strategies that optimize daylight, maximize comfort, and conserve environmental resources. As an Associate Building Performance Analyst at Integral Group, he develops analysis tools and processes to address specialized building science questions and works closely with project teams to incorporate design solutions appropriate for the project and climate.
Jordan Geiger
Visiting Scholar in Computational Design, Computational Design Seminar
Jordan Geiger's work relates architecture to new social and environmental implications of human computer interaction. His design research and practice investigate globalization's design problems at many scales. He is editor of the book Entr'acte: Performing Publics, Pervasive Media and Architecture and has also published essays and projects in Leonardo, The Avery Review, ARCH+ and other journals. Since 2018, Geiger is partner with Omar Khan in Gekh.