teaching

"Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself."

Chinese Proverb


The primary goal of a teacher is to serve as a catalyst guiding students toward discovering their own academic and professional/scientific potential. During my academic journey, passing by institutions in Brazil, Portugal, and the United States, I got the conviction that our responsibility as faculty is to introduce students to deep scientific questions by teaching them concepts and fundamentals toward expanding the frontiers of exploration and discovery. Therefore, I am very interested in developing a curriculum that incorporates peer instruction and hands-on learning experiences to drive home distinct themes in design computing and digital fabrication and relate them to understanding, analyzing, and improving resilient and sustainable design possibilities, from interior architecture and architecture to urban planning and design scales. 

My teaching philosophy relies on three principles: developing designing skills, integrating students in research, and fostering systems thinking. My approach to education mirrors my research: I address interdisciplinary training, hands-on experiences, and cutting-edge scientific developments. The most important aspect of using such an approach is that establishing a link between abstract concepts and real-applicable situations makes the assimilation of knowledge more tangible. The teaching material should be viewable for the students and applicable to specific problems, encouraging learning in a deep and complex manner. This strategy allows the knowledge acquisition exposed in a lecture/studio to be set into a conceptual framework, which is imaginable as it is linked to real-world situations. Thus, deep thinking and theory formation are embedded within the key aspects and fundaments of the course/studio.

In summary, I believe that my diverse trajectory combining teaching and research over 14 years has prepared me to offer a range of classes, from technical courses on parametric modeling, representation, and design studios of varying scales to seminars on urban mobility, smart cities, and urban mitigation of climate change.


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