Announcing New Faculty in Architecture, Fine Arts, and Planning

With decades of combined experience and wide acclaim in their respective fields, the new faculty members are joining three of the School’s academic departments:

Kerry Fang, Associate Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning

Zahra Safaverdi, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture

Zoe Leonard, Keith L. and Katherine S. Sachs Endowed Visiting Professor of Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts

Cameron Wu, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture

Mauricio Rodas, Professor of Practice, Department of City & Regional Planning

“I look forward to working with these distinguished scholars and practitioners to advance the Weitzman School’s strategic goals, from designing healthier cities to advancing climate and energy solutions,” said Fritz Steiner, dean and Paley Professor at Weitzman. “I’m grateful to our faculty who served on the search committees.”

Kerry Fang (Associate Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning) comes to Weitzman from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she was an associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Her research focuses on economic development and land use, particularly the study of urban innovation and entrepreneurship and how urban politics shape the economic development process. Fang specializes in Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) programs and other land use innovation and applications that help communities to adapt to climate change, technological and economic development, and social equity issues. She received her PhD in Urban and Regional Planning and Design from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2018.

Zahra Safaverdi (Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture) is a practicing architect, founder of “St. Sa.”, and the current director of the MASKS initiative, who comes to Weitzman in Spring 2027 from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is an assistant professor of architecture. Her trans-disciplinary projects take a phenomenon (scientific or cultural, geological and geographical) as a point of departure, building narratives that are visualized, materialized, and spatialized to make complex or lesser-known systems more perceptible. These projects and her ongoing research have received support from Harvard University, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Boghossian Foundation, the Macdowell, the Lambert Arts and Culture Program, and multiple faculty research grants. Her writings have been featured in the Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of History of Ideas, The Kenyon Review, OBL/QUE, Platform, Acadia, and Crop, as well as in book chapters in print. Recipient of numerous awards, her disciplinary contributions have been featured globally in Austin, Berlin, Boston, Cambridge, Chicago, Houston, Kent, Knoxville, Locarno, Los Angeles, London, Lubbock, Madrid, Manchester, Mexico City, New Orleans, New York, Saint Louis, San Louis Obispo, Vancouver, and Venice.

Zoe Leonard (Keith L. and Katherine S. Sachs Visiting Professor of Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts) is an artist who works primarily with photography and sculpture. She has exhibited widely in the US and internationally since the early 1990s. Solo exhibitions of Leonard’s work have been presented at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2023); Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2022); Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015), among other institutions. 

Cameron Wu (Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture) is an architect whose practice engages with formal analysis and on-going research of ruled surface geometries.  His recent book, Lines of Development (2024) traces the long-standing presence of ruled surface geometries in architectural design, from historical precedents to contemporary practice. He has served on the faculty of the Princeton University School of Architecture  and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. His work and writing have been featured in Log and Architectural Record and exhibited at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Storefront for Art and Architecture, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mauricio Rodas (Professor of Practice, Department of City & Regional Planning) served as Mayor of Quito, Ecuador, from 2014 to 2019. During his tenure, he led the construction of the country’s first Metro line and implemented several initiatives to advance urban sustainability and resilience, social equity, and economic development. As Mayor, Rodas hosted the UN’s Habitat III Conference and held senior leadership roles across major global city networks, including World Co-President of UCLG, Vice-Chair of C40, and Board Member of the Global Covenant of Mayors and ICLEI. Currently, he is a member of the UN’s Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) and co-chairs the Secretariat of the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance. Rodas is also a faculty fellow at the Penn Institute for Urban Research.

Academic appointments are subject to review and approval by the School, provost, and the Board of Trustees.