Faculty and Consultants: Master of Science, Health and Design

Previously, he was full professor of architecture innovation at the University of Portsmouth and the Director of the Cluster for Sustainable Cities in the UK. At the University of Auckland, he was the head of the technology area and director of postgraduate engagement at the School of Architecture and Planning.

Between 2010–2013, Melis was the Director of Brain City Lab at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, a visiting professor at the Foster Foundation and at the Anhalt University Dessau, as well as an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1996, he founded Heliopolis 21, a multi-awarded architecture practice based in Italy, Germany, and the UK.

Melis is author of more than 200 scholar and popular publications.

As part of her Ph.D. dissertation "Affective Matter: A Haptic Material Modality for Emotion Regulation and Communication," Athina focused her research on therapeutic material systems that interact with the body by responding to physiology signals, such as one's breathing rate, and skin conductance. Building on the research and technology she developed in her dissertation, she founded Affective Matter Inc. to explore wearable applications that aid in the therapy of mental health disorders. She has also worked closely with non-profit organizations to develop courses on inclusive design for individuals with sensory or mental disabilities. Prior to joining New York Tech, she taught design computation and inclusive design studios at MIT, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Boston Architectural College.

Before receiving her Ph.D. and M.S. from MIT, Athina received a Diploma in Architecture Engineering and a Postgraduate Master's in Design Culture from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. She is a registered architect in Greece, where she had her own practice and worked at other firms before focusing her career on design and technology research. Athina's research has been published in science and design journals including Nature, Cognitive Science, and Architectural Design, as well as for computation and human-computer interaction conferences.

Pongratz was previously founding director of the M.S. specialization, Digital Design and Fabrication program and a professor of Architecture at Texas Tech University. He has also taught at AA, UT Austin, and Yeungjin Jr. College, Korea. In New York, he worked for Peter Eisenman and John Reimnitz before co-founding Pongratz Perbellini Architects, which has published widely and received the Segnalazione Compasso d'oro XXI for Hyperwave stone cladding among many international awards. He studied Architecture at TUM and Sci-Arc, and is a licensed architect in Berlin, Germany.

He co-authored (with Perbellini M.) and designed the monograph Peter Eisenman, Heliopolis21, Natural born CaaDesigners, Cyberstone, Digital Media for Design, Digital Design and Fabrication, and Urban Stage (with White D.).

Barach trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and has more than 25 years of experience as a physician executive in the military, and in academic medical centers and integrated delivery systems. He is a trained health services and human factors researcher, with advanced post graduate training in medical education and assessment methods from the Harvard Medical School Josiah Macy Program medical education, lean six sigma, quality improvement and lean techniques at Intermountain Healthcare. He has had additional training in epidemiology and statistics. Barach has been integrally involved in evaluating and promoting human factors, population health, and quality management efforts for the past two decades in several lead healthcare systems and countries, and has advised the WHO on consumer and patient engagement in co-producing better outcomes. He has been invited to contribute to U.S. National Academy of Science working reports and has advised the European Expert Panel on "Investing in Health" (EXPH). He serves on numerous advisory panels on research programs, projects, and training institutes in the US and internationally. He has an extensive track record of improving interprofessional training, health services, and medical education delivery in U.S., Australia, GCC, and Europe. He has led many grant projects and has received career research funding of over $15,000,000 in federal competitive grant funding.

The theories and ideas he has helped shape and research are now in common use including: TeamSTEPPS and team training; human factors common cause adverse event analysis tools; adverse event disclosure and apology; and multi-method, triangulated approaches to research, governance of health systems, and interprofessional learning and culture change to achieve safe and reliable outcomes. He was editor of the British Medical Journal of Quality and Safety, has published more than 300 scientific papers and five books, and his work cited 1more than 1,500 times. He has presented at or chaired international and national conferences, workshops, symposia, and meetings on more than 500 occasions, including delivering over 90 keynote addresses.

Cody has taught design studio at all levels, building construction, architectural theory, and summer study abroad in Italy, and has been the chair of architecture in Long Island since 2011. He has also been the New York Tech NCARB IDP coordinator and AIAS faculty advisor since 2012. Cody has coordinated the summer studio, first-, second-, and fourth-year design studios and was co-director of the Italy program since 2013.

Conner served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health supporting community-based projects in San Antonio and its four contiguous counties. In 2011, she was appointed as Policy Subcommittee Chair for the San Antonio Mayor's Fitness Council. She launched several faith-based obesity prevention programs and developed several community gardens in the area. More recently, Conner worked with the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care to investigate health disparities and evaluate disease prevention and health promotion strategies across the state. She continued those efforts with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention High Obesity Program.

Conner has served on the Lake Village Economic Development Commission and was instrumental in launching the Mayors Mentoring Mayors program to advance comprehensive community health and wellness. She has been appointed by the Arkansas Governor to serve as a Priority Lead for Healthy Active Arkansas and serves on the Governor's Advisory Board for Cycling. Conner recently graduated from the Delta Regional Authority Leadership Executive Academy and the Community Development Institute-Central. In 2019, she was named a Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leader program finalist and was instrumental in leading the city of Lake Village, Arkansas, in being named a Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Community award finalist.

Conner obtained her Master of Applied Psychology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with an emphasis in experimental methodology and design and completed her Master of Public Health in Biostatistics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Public Health (COPH). She received her Doctorate of Public Health in Leadership and Policy from the UAMS COPH.

Galante is active with the Asthma Association of Long Island and a member of the professional school of nursing committee. She is also a member and peer reviewer for American Association of Nurse Practitioners, National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty, Eastern Nursing Research Society, and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

Galante seeks to empower New York Tech's nursing students to become the next generation of critical thinkers, citizens, and professionals. More importantly, she would like to see them envision themselves as future nursing leaders and scholars. By preparing online/on-site activities to deliver content that is both significant and challenging, Galante enables students to think beyond their comfort zone and feel involved in their own learning process.

By acting at the intersection of multiple disciplines, a single intervention has potential to act as a catalyst for systemic change. Her community outreach work in places like Dakar, Senegal, and Puerto Rico is driven by inquiry, investigation, and integration. She continues to bring this unique approach to design to the classroom, where her students are invited to tackle multi-layered, real-world problems and collaborate to test new dimensions of practice.

Gandhi and her colleagues were recently featured in an episode of Horizons, a BBC worldwide television show, for their patented, climate-appropriate, disaster-relief roof system. Her work in teaching, research, and practice has been recognized with several awards and has been widely exhibited and published.

Gandhi earned a master's degree in architecture with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. At the University of Pennsylvania, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor of arts in architecture, as well as a bachelor of arts in Spanish with distinction.

In 2020, he was a delegate to the working group on sustainable development goals for international meetings such as the World Bank as well as Davos, the latter of which brings together members from the private sector, member states, United Nations agencies, and international organizations with the aim of meeting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Gearey also serves as an advisory board member for the faculty of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, and as an expert with the International Federation of Sport Climbing.

Both in and out of the classroom, DiMartino has leveraged current events, such as the January 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, as teachable moments on the importance of critical thinking. Following the events at the Capitol, she joined a multidisciplinary panel of New York Tech faculty and staff to discuss causes for the nation's polarization, the role of social media in spreading misinformation, and conflict resolution skills needed to bridge the ideological divide.

Dongsei's research on the DMZ border contributed to the Golden Lion award-winning "Crow's Eye View: The Korean Peninsula" exhibition curated by Minsuk Cho, Hyungmin Pai and Changmo Ahn at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition directed by Rem Koolhaas (Venice, 2014). Recently, his work has been invited to exhibitions such as the "Active Archive" at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (Seoul, 2017); "(im)positions" at Melbourne School of Design (Melbourne, 2017); "Over the Boundary" at the State Library of Queensland (Brisbane, 2016); "REAL DMZ PROJECT" at Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 2015); "Making Border" at DNA Gallery (Berlin, 2015); and "Cold War, Hot Peace" at Slought (Philadelphia, 2015).

He served as an assistant professor at Korea University and an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, GSAPP before joining New York Tech. Additionally, he has taught architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design studios and seminars at Carleton University (Canada); Kyung Hee University (Korea); Monash University (Australia); RMIT University (Australia); and Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand).

Dongsei practiced architecture in Wellington, Seoul, and New York, and gained his registration as an architect with the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB) in 2007. He is an architect member of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) and served as a Research Advisory Committee member at the Institute of Trans-Division and Border Studies (ITBS) in Seoul, Korea (2015–2018).

Dongsei holds a Master in Design Studies with Distinction from Harvard Graduate School of Design. He also earned his M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University, GSAPP and a professional Bachelor of Architecture with honors from Victoria University of Wellington.

He was a visiting researcher at the MAP-MAACC, CNRS-MCC UMR laboratory at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture (ENSA) Paris-La-Villette (2015). Moveover, he has been a designer and consultant for e-architects (2017–2018, NY, USA), INSITU Architecture (2019–2020, Paris, France) and Eca2 (2019, Paris-Hong Kong). Furthermore, he was a professor of Project Presentation, Linear Perspective and Technical Drawing at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (2012–2014; 2018) where he also held an associate researcher position in the state-funded project titled "Environmental analysis, simulation and digital fabrication of finishing products and construction systems in non-structural façades" (2018–2019).

Currently, has been appointed to a position as a Deep Learning Researcher, within the ArcGAN/ARCHER project, an architectural heritage reconstruction research team at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid, Spain. He has published and taught in a wide array of topics ranging from computational design, biomimicry and materials simulation to machine learning applications in structural design and digital fabrication.

Since joining NYITCOM in 2012, Laurent has led curricular advancement in the foundational clinical skills course: the Doctor-Patient Relationship. This course helps student physicians learn professionalism, interpersonal communication, cultural competency, clinical decision-making, and physical exam skills. She was then appointed chair of the Department of Clinical Medicine at NYITCOM's site at Arkansas State University. There, she leads faculty of multiple clinical specialties and spurs professional and leadership development.

Laurent is a recipient of the Osteopathic Health Policy Fellowship sponsored by the American Osteopathic Association. This fellowship is a leadership training program on the analysis, formulation, and implementation of health policy on the local, state, and national levels. Its purpose is to increase access to affordable, quality health care.

Laurent is an advocate for health equity and a leader in addressing social determinants of health to transform community health outcomes. She is a driver in enlarging capacities for innovation in medical education, population health, and community development. As the executive director for the Delta Population Health Institute, Laurent leverages resources in education, research, policy, and community engagement to bring about policy, system, and environmental change. The institute aims to create a culture of health in the Delta.

Lawer spent two decades as an innovation consultant to companies of all kinds and sizes throughout the EU and US with occasional forays into China and Japan. He has conducted and mentored dozens of innovation projects, gaining extensive experience of multiple industries and markets spanning automotive, chemicals, energy and materials, healthcare, pharma and medtech, financial services, and consumer goods.

Chris is based near Oxford U.K. and works globally.

He also developed a new generation of microchips called EPU (Emotion Processing Units) for artificial intelligence and robots, and the world's first Al that can feel 64 trillion possible states every tenth of a second. He has presented to the Artificial Intelligence Council of the United Nations, and been written about in Forbes magazine.

Since its inception, PAR FORE has grown from serving a handful of adolescents in New York to serving children in Utah, New Jersey, and Nevada. In 2013, Lopez founded Inclusive Sports and Fitness Inc., a nonprofit aimed to meet the occupational needs of children with performance skill impairments and help them advance their sensorimotor, social, emotional, and cognitive abilities. In addition, he collaborates with industry leaders in science and technology to explore and introduce innovative and more reliable interventions for children.

He is author of 302 publications, included several books: Introduction to Philosophy of Biology (Laterza, 2005); The Theory of Evolution (Il Mulino, 2010); Born to Believe (Codice Edizioni, 2008, with V. Girotto and G. Vallortigara); The Unexpected Life (Cortina Editore, 2011); Homo Sapiens: The Great History of Human Diversity (Codice Edizioni, 2011, with L.L. Cavalli Sforza); Introduction to Darwin (Laterza, 2012); The End of the World (Il Mulino, 2012); Freedom of Migration (Einaudi, 2016, with V. Calzolaio); How We Will Be (Codice Edizioni, 2016, with L. De Biase); Imperfection: A Natural History (Cortina, 2019; MIT Press, 2022); The Earth After Us (Contrasto, 2019, with F. Lanting's photos), Finitude (Cortina, 2020); and Serendipity (Cortina, 2021).

He is also a member of the editorial boards of Evolution: Education and Outreach, Evolutionary Biology, Nature Italy, Istituto Treccani, and the Italian edition of Scientific American, and the director of both Pikaia, the Italian website dedicated to evolution, and the University of Padua web magazine Il Bo LIVE.

With Niles Eldredge, Ian Tattersall, and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, he has curated international science exhibitions.

He is also the CTO and product manager of RENCA RUS Ltd (Cheliabynsk, Russia), working on production of geopolymer mortars designed for 3D printing applications; cementifiers, other traditional binders and new geopolymer-based binders. He is responsible for research and development, quality control in Italy for VICAT (France).

He has been a consultant for Heres Srl, Quinto (TV), Italy on new raw materials such as Prompt Natural Cement and different types of pozzolan and additives to improve the properties of their products based on hydrates and hydraulic binders, especially with cocciopesto. As a chemist and production technician for Technokolla Spa, he participated in the design of new products using different types of traditional binders: repair mortars, rapid repair mortars, self-levelling (for interiors and exteriors), self-compacting concrete, injection mortars with or without OPC, waterproofing membrane, multi-consistency tile adhesives, fiber tile adhesive, NHL tile adhesives, NHL plasters, cement plasters, finishing mortars, sealants, mortars epoxies, tile adhesives of the past).

Roberts has juried several public realm design competitions, art prizes, and awards—including Building Better Healthcare Awards, which she joined in 2022 as judge for the Patient Experience category, focusing on art, interior design, and landscaping projects. Previously, Roberts was senior curator at Arnolfini, Bristol, where she directed the Exhibition Department and curated group and monographic shows of Janice Kerbel, Joachim Koester, Liam Gillick, Victor Burgin, Michael Snow, and Vito Acconci (his first in the United Kingdom).

From 1992, Roberts curated several freelance exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, and Ireland that included work by Pierre Huyghe, Sarah Morris, Douglas Gordon, Fiona Banner, and Sam Taylor-Wood, among dozens of others. In 2015, she guest-curated a city-wide photography festival in France entitled The Vanishing Point of History that included Larry Achiampong, Bertille Bak, Eric Baudelaire, David Blandy, Matthew Buckingham, Mounir Fatmi, Melik Ohanian, Uriel Orlow, Lina Selander, and many more. Roberts was a Helena Rubinstein Fellow in Museum Studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1989–1990, and later attended the École du Magasin curating program in Grenoble, France.

She earned a degree in art history at Barnard College, Columbia University, before undertaking graduate work in the history and theory of modern and contemporary art at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In the United Kingdom, she has been a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths, Queen Mary University of London, Birkbeck, Slade, Westminster, Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins, Kingston, and, internationally, at the Royal Danish Academy, Konstfack, Stockholm, Art Academy Helsinki, Kunsthøgskolen Bergen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, Iuav University of Venice, and others. Frequently featured in the printed press, radio, and television, she is also a long-standing elected member of the International Association of Art Critics and the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art. Roberts has lived and worked in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan.

The office has won widespread recognition and numerous prizes. In 2013, it received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for its work on the Salam Centre for Cardiac Surgery in Sudan; the international Capocchin-G.Ius Gold Medal for construction of the world's most sustainable pediatric hospital (Port Sudan) and the Curry Stone Design Prize for the overall sustainability (social and environmental) of recent projects built in different parts of the world. In 2014, the practice won the Zumtobel Group Award for innovation and sustainability. TAMassociati was named Italian Architect of the Year for 2014 "for its ability to enhance the ethical dimension of the profession." It was the curatorial team of the Italian Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2016. In 2017, the firm won the LafargeHolcim Awards Acknowledgement prize for their project "Maisha Film Lab," Kampala, Uganda.

Currently TAMassociati is working in Uganda, Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Switzerland, Yemen, Lebanon, and Italy.

He splits his efforts between (1) applying research into low-tech, high performance materials, assemblies, and systems to the design and construction of small buildings and their microclimates with the goal of repeatable and quantifiable reductions in project carbon footprint; and (2) developing architectural workflows that allow performance modeling and simulation to inform form-making. He has written several books and numerous articles on related topics.

In academia, he has taught a variety of studios and core courses in both architecture and engineering and has conducted research that covers a wide range of topics, from developing and testing low-tech, low-carbon building envelopes, to investigations into high performance, low-carbon material science, to methodologies for teaching sustainable design. His design-build work with students features two Solar Decathlon competitions, including the 2015 winning entry.

Consequently, she was able to drive her current venture, Gina Health, to become a finalist at the 2020 NC TECH State of Technology Conference for its unique design in gamifying a mental-health platform. She also contributed to the wearable (biomedical) data management and governance at Duke University-Biomedical Engineering. She was also fortunate to be selected as the youngest adjunct professor of risk management of medical devices at the age of 23.

And at the age of 19, she started the IEEE Direct 2 Students initiative (D2S) in the Philippines which focuses on producing innovative yet essential technologies for the aftermath of natural calamities in the Asia-Pacific region. This effort was replicated in India, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong. Devoted to the advancement of innovative healthcare, Usop is an active peer reviewer at key journals (IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Journal of Medical Internet Research).

She has mostly designed and managed health-related interventions, directing operations and coordinating advocacy programs at the national and international level. In 2020, Visconti, who holds a master's degree in philosophy and a bachelor's degree in physics, collaborated with the Italian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.