Advisor: Godfried Augenbroe, Craig Zimring

Dissertation Title: Identifying relevant variables for understanding how school facilities affect educational outcomes

Current position: Director of Research, Gresham, Smith and Partners

Email: Sheila_bosch@gspnet.com

As GS&P's Director of Research, Sheila Bosch serves as a firm wide resource to support planners and designers in applying evidence based design in healthcare projects to enhance quality, safety and efficiency. Sheila also contributes to this important and growing body of knowledge through original research. For example, GS&P and Georgia Tech have teamed up to study the relationships between family presence and family zone typologies in ICU patient rooms. Sheila also provides internal education to GS&P employees, as well as learning labs for healthcare clients. Gresham, Smith and Partners provides planning, architecture, engineering and interior design services to national and international clients from 18 offices across the United States and in China. Sheila obtained her PhD in 2004 from Georgia Tech's College of Architecture. Sheila lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband and son where she enjoys ballroom and swing dancing, boating with her family, as well as searching for interesting shells along the shore.

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Email: ys.choi@gatech.edu

Young-Seon Choi specialized in Architecture, Culture, and Behavior studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a professional Master’s degree in Architecture from the same school. Her main research interest lies in how the physical design of hospitals work with care process and technology to enhance patient and staff outcomes and experiences. Her recent publication in the Journal of Advanced Nursing establishes the practical framework of a multi-systemic approach in fall prevention that recognizes the collective efforts of the physical environment, care process, and technology to prevent patient falls and fall-related injuries. She is currently taking a lead on projects, funded by the Military Health System and supported by Emory University Hospitals, that examine links between the architectural design factors and one of key patient outcomes (i.e., patient falls), utilizing clinical data of fallers and their locations of falls. She was a recipient of the 2008 research award granted by the American Institute of Architecture Health Foundation with a project that investigated the impact of the unit layout on family experiences and their involvement in patient care.

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Email: crewsj@gatech.edu

Joshua Crews is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Josh graduated from the University of Florida in 2007 with a Bachelor of Design in Architecture and pursued his career in healthcare design with Gresham, Smith and Partners until beginning his graduate studies at Georgia Tech in 2009. He is currently conducting research on sustainability in the Military Health System, flexibility in healthcare architecture, and the utilization of Active Design Guidelines in multi-family affordable housing projects. Josh is part of the Healthy Environments Research Group within the Health Systems Institute and is pursuing the Master of Architecture professional degree in the College of Architecture. Through his studies at Georgia Tech Josh has been awarded the AIA Dorothy P. Spence Memorial Scholarship and the HKS Mid-Atlantic Design Fellowship.

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Advisor: Craig Zimring
Dissertation Title: Complex Architectural Settings: An Investigation of Spatial and Cognitive Variables through Wayfinding Behavior
Current Position: Associate Professor, Associate Dean for Research, Coordinator of LPMD (Ph.D) Program, Director of Health-care Facilities (HCaF) Design

Email: saif.haq@ttu.edu

Dr. Saif Haq is an Associate Professor and the Associate Dean for Research, and founder-director of Health-Care Facilities (HCaF) Design program in the College of Architecture, Texas Tech University. He has taught in universities in the US and Bangladesh. His research explores Spatial Cognition and Space Syntax, uses Virtual Immersive Environments, and is focused on complex medical facilities. He has published in national and international journals, has chaired conference sessions, and serves as a peer-reviewer for internationally reputed conferences and journals. Professor Haq's work has been featured in news media and other forums. He holds a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology (2001), S.M.Arch.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1992), and a professional B.Arch. from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (1986). He is married to Feroza, and has two children Hridoy and Hridee. If interested, you may find Dr. Haq in LinkedIn or Facebook.

Advisor: Craig Zimring
Dissertation Title: Where older people walk: Assessing the relationship between physical environmental factors and walking behavior of older adults
Current Position: Director of Research Center for Health Design
Email: ajoseph@healthdesign.org

website: www.healthdesign.org

Dr. Anjali Joseph is the Director of Research at The Center for Health Design. Trained as an architect, she has a Ph.D. in Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. As a part of her doctoral studies she completed her minor in Heath Systems from the School of Industrial Engineering at Georgia Tech. She leads and coordinates the research activities at The Center. She works closely with the Center's member healthcare organizations called the Pebble Partners in developing their research agenda, identifying research partners and in communicating the results of their research efforts through different channels. Her current work focuses on understanding how the environment influences health and well being of occupants, especially in the healthcare context. Her areas of expertise include healthcare design research, activity friendly environments, qualitative and quantitative research methods and research applications in design. Ms. Joseph has been actively involved in several different research projects aimed at understanding the relationship between architecture and health. She has collaborated on research projects with The Center for Health Design as well as other institutions such as Texas A&M University and the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. She was awarded a dissertation grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for her study that examines how the design of paths in retirement communities influences walking behavior of older adults. She published a series of whitepapers on the impact of different aspects of the environment on healthcare outcomes. Peer reviewed articles authored by Dr. Joseph have been published in refereed journals such as Environment & Behavior, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Senior Housing and Care Journal and Journal of Housing for the elderly. She is a regular speaker at many national conferences such as Healthcare Design, Institute for Healthcare Improvement Forum (IHI), American College of Healthcare Executives conference, Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) etc.

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email: alabrador@hksinc.com

A graduate of the professional Master of Architecture program, Amaya's interest in healthcare architecture is fueled by her undergraduate studies in sociology. She believes that physical environments directly impact how people live their lives and that, in hospitals, those spaces can be designed to maximize healing. Amaya has worked on research for the Health Care Research Collaborative report: Sustainable Resilient Flooring Choices for Hospitals and holds an Evidence-based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC). She is currently working in the Healthcare sector for HKS, Inc. out of their Washington, D.C. offices.

Advisor: John Peponis
Dissertation Title: Directed visibility analysis: three case studies on the relationship between building layout, perception and behavior

Email: luyi12@gmail.com

Yi Lu received his bachelor degree of architecture in Southeast University, China and his master degree of architecture in National University of Singapore. He has practiced in large architectural firm DP Architects in Singapore. His projects includes single family houses, housing, large commercial complex.

He is interested in several research areas, spatial syntax, architectural theory, environmental behavior studies, and healthcare design. After joining ph.d program in Georgia Tech , he has worked two research projects:
1) web walking on campus, which studies how the physical environment influences people's walking behavior in corporate campuses.
2) Visibility Analysis in ICU, which explores the effect of visibility structure of ICU floor on nurse's movement and distribution.

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Email: smao8@gatech.edu

Siming Mao is a master student in Health Systems. She received her undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Tsinghua University. She serves as a graduate research assistant in Health Systems Institute. She is currently working in benchmarking project with HCA. Previous work included evidence-based design project for Military Health System program. Mao is interested in quality improvement of health care service and cares about improving patient experience. She hopes to work as Health System consultant after graduate.

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Advisor: Craig Zimring
Dissertation Title: Taking the stairs: Environmental features that explain why people use stairs in 3 to 4 story academic workplace buildings
Current Position: Professor, Dean, OCAD University
Email: gnicoll@ocad.ca

Gayle Nicoll is the Dean of the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Gayle is a licensed architect with two decades of academic leadership including seventeen years at the Department of Architecture Science at Ryerson University in Toronto as Professor of Architecture and Building Science and Program Director and four year at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she served as Chair of the Department of Architecture. She has focused her academic work on teaching and research on building technology, human behavior and design practices related to healthy environments. She has been active in service to the professional practice by working to formulate the Ontario Building Code Certification Examinations for the Ontario Association of Architects and the new Canadian Architect Registration Examinations. Dr. Nicoll has served as a consultant to the City of New York on several projects related to increasing physical activity in buildings including the LEED Innovation Credit Application for Active Living for the NYC Riverside Hospital renovation, the Physical Activity and Health Committee for greening the NYC Building Code and the recently published NYC Active Design Guideline.

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Current Position: Principal, MXD - Liquid Studio, NCARB, AIA

Email: von@mac.com

Website: http://www.liquidstudios360.com

M. von Nkosi has been working in the field of community development and redevelopment since the early-1990's. He has helped move Smart Growth strategies forward with his experience in, and knowledge of architecture, urban design, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), multimedia and academic research. The numerous projects von has worked on include implementation planning for the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District for the Historic District Development Corporation (HDDC) in Atlanta and identifying the gaps in neighborhood development projects prior to the 1996 Olympic Games. In late February 2007, he began serving as a Loaned Executive in the City of New Orleans.

For nearly 10-years before working in New Orleans von managed the Mixed Income Community Initiative (MICI) in metropolitan Atlanta for the Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership (ANDP), Inc. This work culminated in a report and blueprint entitled "Making the Case (MTC) for Mixed Income and Mixed Use Communities: An Executive Summary" published in 2004 (to view the full report, online, go to www.andpi.org/mici). By March 2005, the MICI report was the #1 ranked result on Google for those querying "mixed income communities" and had remained in that spot for some 4 years. The update, "Making the Case ¨C The Next Generation," was released in fall 2007. While leading the MTC work von became a Life Fellow of the Centres for Leadership and Public Values ¨C a partnership between Duke University and the University of Cape Town South Africa. The center focuses on political and economic analysis, knowledge about how to lead people and organizations and a strong ethical foundation for decision-making (www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/clpv/). Von's other international experience includes being part of a 2009 New Orleans delegation visiting Tokyo and Miyakejima Japan to share experiences on disaster recovery issues.

Von holds licenses to practice architecture in Illinois, Florida, and Georgia. He also holds a certification (2005) from the National Charrette Institute as a Charrette Planner. As the founder, President/CEO of The MXD Collaborative, Inc. (www.liquidstudios360.com) von brings some of the best and creative minds together to help improve urban environments as a collaborative effort. His advisory work has also included providing technical assistance to health departments in Mississippi, New Mexico, and Ohio on influencing public policy around land use issues to improve health. MXD is also one of a few urban design firms that specialize in urban safety.

Von also holds two professional degrees in architecture (B.Arch and M.Arch) from Hampton University and the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) respectively. While at IIT, von received two design competition awards from the Illinois Society of Architects and was the recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Award and the AIA Medal for Excellence in the Study of Architecture. He obtained a second masters degree (M.S.) from the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech) College of Architecture in 2009. He has also completed all his coursework and exams towards a Ph.D in Architecture focused on urban design and real estate development at GA Tech.

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Selen Okcu

Advisor: Craig Zimring
Dissertation Title: Maximizing the benefits of courtroom POEs in design decision support and academic inquiry through a unified conceptual model

Email: dpati@hksinc.com

Website: http://www.hksinc.com

Dr Debajyoti Pati is the executive director of CADRE (the Center for Advanced Design Research & Evaluation), the non-profit knowledge resource of HKS Architects, an international A/E firm. Dr Pati holds the Rockwell Endowment Professorship in the Department of Design, Texas Tech University. He has presented and published widely on healthcare environment research. He was adjudged among the most influential people in healthcare design in 2009 and 2010, and received the Best International Research Project award from the International Academy for Design & Health in 2009 and 2010. He is a member of the Research Coalition of the Center for Health Design, on the editorial board of HERD, and Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects.

Advisor: John Peponis
Dissertation Title: On the configurational studies of building plans from the viewpoint of a situated observer : a partial theory of configuration for plans not involving curves

Current Position: Professor, School of Fine Arts, Department of Design, University of Kansas

Email: mrashid@ku.edu

Website: http://www.saud.ku.edu/architecture/people/faculty/mahbubrashid

Dr. Mahbub Rashid is an architect who applies structural theories and techniques to design and research work. Before joining the University of Kansas, Rashid started out as an architect in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He then took on roles in higher education as a lecturer at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and Graduate Research Assistant at MIT's Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. After completing his Masters from MIT, Rashid entered the Doctoral Program at Georgia Tech where he acted as Graduate Research Associate and Post-doctoral Fellow for the College of Architecture. More recently, Rashid worked as a staff architect at Cooper Carry, Inc., in Atlanta and became a registered architect of the State of Georgia, USA. He then returned to Georgia Tech College of Architecture to work as a Research Scientist on several projects for the US General Services Administration, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, US Courts, and the Steelcase, Inc.
Rashid has received numerous awards and scholarships over the past twenty-five years, including the 10- year Service Recognition by the President of the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology, the 2005 Research Integration Award of the College of Architecture, the Presidential Honoree as the Outstanding Graduate of the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech, and the Aga Khan Program Scholarship at MIT in Boston, to name just a few.

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Thesis

Dissertation title: An investigation on task interruptions and the physical environment for human performance

Email: gtg874i@mail.gatech.edu

Hyun-Bo Seo (Bo) is interested in how the physical environment supports task and its performance. In his thesis, he observed nurses to see how hospital unit design supports managing interruptions during medication administration. For the past five years, he was involved in the design of Emory 2D neurological ICU, conducted evaluation studies of 3W neurological ICU at Medical College of Georgia, and worked for the new construction project of LSU hospital at New Orleans. He received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Korea University, Seoul, Korea and Master of Architecture degree from Georgia Tech.

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Amyruth Stevens is an Advance Planning Group Intern at Jacobs Engineering. She has also served as Health Environments Research Assistant at the Georgia Tech Health Systems Institute, a Design & Planning Intern for Athletic Facilities at University of Georgia Athletic Association, and a Design & Planning Intern at Office of the University Architects.

Ross Westlake completed his Master's of Science in Healthcare Architecture Research in December 2012. His focus was as a Healthcare Systems Integrator; and he worked as a graduate Research Assistant for the Health Systems Institute. Prior to starting his academic work, he was a Regional Manager for Nurture by Steelcase, a healthcare interiors company for 5 years, consulting on strategy and applications, and assisting in research. Before that, he was the Director of Marketing and a Regional Manager for Steelcase Architectural Products for 5 years. He has worked for several Fortune 500 companies, including Rubbermaid, Eaton, and Steelcase.