William Braham, the Andrew Gordon Professor of Architecture, and Dorit Aviv, assistant professor of architecture, are part of a cross-disciplinary team of architects and engineers selected to receive a $3 million NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Award from the National Science Foundation and expect to have a total of 56 students (36 doctoral and 20 master students) participating in the project from Penn Engineering and the Weitzman School of Design over the course of the next five years. Students in this program will be able to pursue research across engineering, architecture, and design.
Shu Yang, the Joseph Bordogna Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), is the principal investigator of the grant. Yang, Braham, and Aviv, together with Paulo Arratia, and LeAnn Dourte, from Penn Engineering make up the leadership team of CLIMATE-CARE, as the initiative is called. Laia Mogas-Soldevila, assistant professor at Weitzman, will also collaborate with the team on this grant. They will welcome PhD and master’s students to submit their interest in the program this fall and anticipate students to commence the program in 2025.
Aviv, Braham, Yang, and Arratia, have collaborated on several research projects, such as on the integration of hydrogel membrane into building facades, the use of evaporative cooling in data centers, and the thermal performance of carbon-absorbing concrete. Through the NSF CLIMATE-CARE grant, they plan to extend their cross-disciplinary work into the education of graduate students.
Students participating in CLIMATE-CARE will pursue research across engineering and architecture. They will attend seminars and take a number of different courses that touch on both disciplines. Students will be mentored by different faculty members across Penn Engineering and Weitzman and will have access to the program's independent advisory board composed of experts in industry, national labs, nonprofits and architecture firms, giving them opportunities to attend field trips, learn from guest speakers and pursue a variety of internships.
“This is the first formal collaborative graduate program across engineering and architecture at Penn,” says Yang. “I’m excited to welcome our first cohort of students into this program early next year and formally guide them in interdisciplinary real-world problem solving and innovation.” As Braham observes, “architects and engineers follow different formal curricula, but work together on the built environment throughout their careers, so learning each other’s language and conventions while in school can only help in the collective effort to address the climate emergency.”
At Weitzman, the NSF grant will support the studies of both master and PhD level students in architecture, who will specialize in the development of state-of the art strategies to reduce both operational and embodied carbon in buildings through cross-disciplinary education and research.
“The building sector is responsible for a significant portion of energy-related global GHG emissions, and if we want to see a significant change in the near future, a tight collaboration between architects and engineers is necessary,” says Aviv. “The students trained through this grant can become the leaders of the necessary transition to carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative buildings in the coming decades.”
Doctoral students are invited to express their interest in the program, with an official commencement of the program expected in early 2025. Master’s students interested in collaboration and internship opportunities are also invited to contact Aviv or Braham.
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