Advancing professionally-- gracefully and gratefully
I am getting on in the years... five years have passed since I started my job as an associate professor at Drexel University and I have really gotten to do "big science" in those years. This is thanks in large part to having excellent and supportive colleagues in the Architectural Engineering program in the Dept. of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering.
I've also been hired at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (as a "New Girl" hahah) to continue my research into the impact of environmental design parameters for lighting, acoustics, and thermal comfort on patient wellbeing. This work is important, timely, and challenging.
During this time, I've moved adjacent to my first love -- architecture -- and more squarely into the world of computational modeling and engineering design. I'm not sad, one door opened and I do not have the bandwidth to address both rooms. So I am good (for now). Some highlights:
I'm submitting my promotion application for full professor. This summer I'll complete the dossier and it'll be sent out for review. I did not realize how few full professors there are in architecture and how difficult finding reviewers who span engineering and building design would be.
Hamed Yassaghi, my first PhD student at Drexel is preparing to defend his dissertation this summer. He's already started working at an office focusing on modeling and energy conservation. In his research over the past four and half years, Hamed developed analytical tools to quantify the impacts of climate change on buildings through the end of this century, including a way to propagate uncertainties from building operations and climate scenarios. He has six (6!) published papers as a result of this work. I cannot be prouder of his hard work, his growth over these years, and am eager to welcome him as my colleague in an academic setting once he gets his industry experience (and PE) squared away.
I have established really great collaborations with a lot of people across Drexel as well as other universities. I am so grateful for the conversations that I've had with colleagues from non-Engineering fields, particularly because it highlights the absolute importance of developing a common language and set of goals in order to realistically do "convergent" work. Speaking of convergent work, my collaborators and I have been very successful in the past few years in winning grants. Since getting to Drexel, I've been either PI or co-PI on seven awarded NSF grants (4 research and 3 conference awards). I still have four pending, of which 2 are looking pretty good #crossfingers.
I am now the program head for the Architectural Engineering program in my department. Our former program head is now our new department head, Michael Waring, and he asked me to take on this leadership role. I'm really excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to driving our national prominence as a leader in building science research with an inclusive and climate-engaged undergraduate curriculum.
And finally, I've been DEEPLY involved in ongoing work at the College of Engineering in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This has been so important (so many White males!) because obviously representation matters. This is an existential issue for women and people of color, so it's no surprise that everyone who speaks in the DEI space is personally invested in ensuring our voices are heard. What I'd love, though, is to see some of my White colleagues take up this gauntlet. It would be great to have some accomplices, not just allies, in the work that we're doing. #togetherwecandosomuch
The last thing that I want to leave you with is this photo... It's a zoom meeting in which I was invited to speak to the board of editors (most of whom are architecture faculty) for the TAD journal (https://tadjournal.org/). We all look so happy! This meeting made me realize that I should work harder to cultivate connections with architecture researchers. I think that I would like to unite my two brains more cohesively, so that design and engineering are not two rooms side-by-side, but rather converge in one big room.
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