Current PhD students


Meltem Al

Meltem smiling black background

BArch, Middle East Technical University (2010); MArch, Middle East Technical University (2013); MA in Architecture, University of California, Los Angeles (2015)


Research interests and specializations:

  • neoliberal urbanism
  • urban politics
  • urban renewal
  • housing
  • fundamentalism in cities
  • urban social movements
  • architecture and social agency
  • right to the city

 

Thesis title: “Spaces of Capital, Religion, and Ideology: Fundamentalist Housing Enclaves in Istanbul”

 

Supervisor: Ipek Türeli

Email: meltem.al [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Elijah Borrero

Black and white expressionless Elijah

BA (Mathematics), SUNY Albany (2001); MArch (Professional), Parsons School of Design (2013); MArch (Post-Professional), McGill (2016)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • architecture, planning and military production in 20thc
  • architectural historiography
  • disciplinary exchanges

 

Thesis title: “Cold War Architectures: US Military Construction Campaigns in West Germany, 1950-1957”

 

Supervisor: David Theodore

Email: elijah.borrero [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Christopher Clarke

dressy attire, upper body shot looking straight at camera, slight smile

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: christopher.clarke2 [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Zoë Cope

Zoë smiling against a pink background

BS, Architecture (The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2015); M.Arch(The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2017)

 

Research interests and specializations :

  • The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
  • Architecture & Narrative
  • Alternative Preservation Mechanisms
  • Atmospheres & Presence
  • ArchitectureHistory andTheory

 

Thesis title: Polia's Ghost: Unearthing theFemaleVoice of theHypnerotomachiaPoliphili

 

Supervisors: Alberto Pérez-Gómez/Chriscinda Henry

Email : zoe.cope [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Valentina Davila

Valentina smiling in front of a stone pillar

Master Degree in Architecture, Los Andes University (2007); M.Arch (Construction), Madrid Polytechnic University (2009); Interior Architecture Post-Professional Master, Madrid Polytechnic University (2010); History and Theory of Architecture Post-Professional Master, McGill University (2014)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • servants and service spaces throughout history
  • domesticity and the meaning of home
  • power and agency in Latin American architecture
  • Latin American housing policies
  • women’s influence in the informal housing system: barrios and favelas of Latin America
  • architecture, built environment and the construction of class identities in Latin America
  • social justice and space

 

Thesis title: “Women in the Home Front: Venezuelan Domestic Workers and the Appropriation of Architecture”

 

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: valentina.davila [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Arièle Dionne-Krosnick

student smiling white background with hanging frames

BFA Art History and Studio Arts, Concordia University (2012); MA Visual and Critical Studies, SAIC (2014)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • American Architecture
  • Critical race studies
  • Visual culture
  • Civil protest and the built environment

 

Thesis title (provisional): Spaces of Bathing: Architecture and Blackness in the United States (1954-1968)

 

Supervisor: Ipek Türeli

Emailariele.dionne-krosnick [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Remy Fortin

Student smiling and looking at the camera.

B. Sc (Arch.) Université de Montréal (2017); MArch, McGill University (2020)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Passive thermoregulation and ventilation
  • Biogenic and regenerative materials
  • Material efficiency
  • Materials design
  • Adaptive comfort and thermal resilience

 

Thesis title: Design and co-optimization of biogenic thermal mass for passive cooling and natural ventilation

 

Supervisor: Salmaan Craig

Email: remy.fortin [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Kimberly Gultia

white background, Kim in a black top with an open smile, coloured rimmed glasses, long hair to one side

BSArch, University of San Carlos (2003); BFA, University of San Carlos (2007); MArch, University of San Carlos (2015)


Research interests and specializations:

  • colonial and postcolonial cultural landscapes
  • vernacular architecture
  • domestic architecture and domesticity
  • gender, sexuality, and space
  • media, representation, and identity
  • material culture

 

Thesis title: “The Mestiza and the Morena: The Social Construction of the Filipina and Postcolonial Domestic Architecture in the Philippines (1946-1986)”

 

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: kimberly.gultia [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Anna Halepaska

Supervisor: Salmaan Craig

Email: anna.halepaska [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Utku Karakaya

Utku gazing to the left in black and white

B.Arch., METU (2011); M.Arch., METU (2014)

 

Research Interests and Specializations:

  • design activism and humanitarian architecture
  • horizontal practice models and socially-engaged architecture
  • user involvement and participation in architecture practice
  • spatial justice and urban space politics
  • post-colonial theory and urban space

 

Thesis title: “Organizing for Public Interest and Spatial Justice: An Ethnography of Socially Engaged Architecture in Turkey”

 

Supervisor: Ipek Türeli

Email: utku.karakaya [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Fiona Kenney

Fiona Kenney PhD student smiling below a red brick wall

BA , Ryerson University (2018); MDes History and Philosophy of Design, Harvard University (2020)

 

Research Interests and Specializations:

  • end-of-life architecture; death studies
  • care, relationality, and care ethics
  • medical architecture
  • feminist theory
  • moral philosophy

 

Thesis title (provisional): Architecture as/of Care: Spatial Interpretations of Palliative Philosophies, 1967-2000

 

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Emailfiona.kenney [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Nathalie Kerschen

Nathalie smiling against an off-white background

B. Arch, ENSA Paris-Malaquais (2008); M. Arch, ENSA Paris-Malaquais (2010); Post-Professional MA Architecture, McGill-University (2011); BA Philosophy, Paris-Sorbonne IV (2014)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • phenomenology
  • contemporary art and architecture
  • nature and animal studies
  • geometry
  • computation

 

Thesis title: “CTRL+Z: Reclaiming Nature in the age of computational novelty. Alternatives in Architectural Design.”

Nathalie is supported by the Fonds National de la Recherche, Luxembourg (11273634).

 

Supervisor: Alberto Pérez-Gómez/Theodora Vardouli

Email: nathalie.kerschen [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Destiny Kirumira

Brown skinned smiling white top on white background

BA Mathematics & Physics, University of Alberta (2018); MArch, University of Calgary (2021)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Black Canadian architecture
  • Black diasporic studies
  • colonial and postcolonial cultural landscapes
  • vernacular architecture
  • domestic architecture and domesticity

 

Thesis title: Rebuilding the Black Home: The Architecture of Black Settlements in Canada (1780-1930)

 

Supervisor: Ipek Türeli

Emaildestiny.kirumira [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Maxime Leblanc

Max Leblanc, PhD student smiling crossed arms in front of a white background

B.Sc.(Arch.) Université de Montréal (2018); M.Arch. McGill University (2020)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Architectures of Simulation
  • Virtual Environments
  • History of Virtual Reality
  • History of Computing
  • Digital Media

 

Thesis title: "Architectures of Simulation: the Dome, the CAVE, and the Headset"

 

Supervisor: Theodora Vardouli

Email: max.leblanc [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Magdalena Milosz

Magda standing smiling against a shadowed off-white background

BAS (Honours), University of Waterloo (2009); GDip, Cognitive Science, University of Waterloo (2015); MArch, University of Waterloo (2015)


Research interests and specializations:

  • Indigenous-settler spatial relations 
  • (settler) colonial space 
  • Indigenous architectures 
  • environmental humanities 
  • architecture and literature 

 

Thesis title: “'They Have Decided What Houses Will be Built': Indigenous Peoples, Architecture, and the Settler-Colonial State, 1920-1970s."

 

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: magdalena.milosz [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Gonzalo Muñoz Vera

Gonzalo squinting in an open field

BArch, University of Chile (2004); MArch, University of Chile (2006); Post-Prof Master (History & Theory of Architecture), McGill University (2012)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • · architecture representation
  • · visual culture
  • · architecture education
  • · architecture publications
  • · global perspectives in urbanism

 

Thesis title: “What is True has no Windows: The Robert Burford’s Cityscape Panoramas at the Leicester-Square Rotunda (1824-1836).”

 

Supervisors: Ricardo Castro/Ipek Türeli

Email: gonzalo.munoz [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Laura Josephine O’Brien

smiling student arms crossed leather black jacket on white blouse cobbled stone path with red fence to the right with hanging baskets and light bulbs

BFA (Art History, minor in English Literature), Concordia University (2014); MA (Art History), Concordia University (2016)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • gender, sexuality and space
  • nineteenth-century urbanism
  • spatial and feminist theory
  • human geography
  • feminist material culture


Thesis title: “Reading Architectural Evidence through the Montreal WCTU Sheltering Home Register”

 

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: laura.obrien [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Dijana Omeragić Apostolski

Dijana smiling slightly in front of a red brick wall

B.Eng. (Arch), Saints Cyril and Methodius University(2009); MPhil, Saints Cyril and Methodius University(2014); MArch, McGill University (2016)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Embodiment, anatomy, and pre-modern architectural treatises
  • Histories of matter, body, and Catholic humoral medicine
  • Early modern critical whiteness studies
  • Fifteenth-century fortifications and military architecture

 

Thesis title: “Technologies of Soul: Michelangelo’s Vital Spirit and Architectural Disegno

 

Supervisors: Alberto Pérez-Gómez/David Theodore

Email: dijana.omeragikjapostolski [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Peter Osborne 

Student smiling at Camera. Behind him is a black backdrop.

BCom, Queen’s University (2008); MArch, University of Toronto (2014); MDes Energy & Environments, Harvard University (2019)

 

Research interests and specialization:

  • Construction ecology
  • Architecture & design theory
  • Ecological economics
  • Environmental assessment & development
  • Uneven social & ecological exchange

 

Thesis title: “Forest-Building: a new conceptual model for the integrated design of forests and building”

 

Supervisor: Michael Jemtrud

Email: peter.osborne [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Elissavet Pertigkiozoglou

Eliza, PhD student smiling against a white background

MArch, National Technical University of Athens (2016); MDes Technology, Harvard Graduate School of Design (2018)

 

Research interests and specialization:

  • History of Architectural Practice
  • History of Computing and Information Technologies
  • Science and Technology Studies
  • Digital Humanities
  • Work Relationships, Labour, Collaboration

 

Thesis title: "Programmed Collaboration: Work Relationships in Software for Building Design, 1970-2010"

 

Supervisor: Theodora Vardouli

Emaileliza.pertigkiozoglou [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Aaron Richmond

Black and white Aaron looking directly at us without expression

BA, University of King’s College (2002); MPHIL, University of Cambridge (2004); MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art (2014)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • History of 19th and early 20th-century scientific aesthetics

  • Exchanges between art, architecture and psychology

 

Thesis title: “Doctors of L’Esprit nouveau: Experimental Psychology and the Modern Aesthetic Subject, 1920-1925”

 

Supervisor: David Theodore

Email: aaron.richmond [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Daniel Rondinel

Daniel looking sharp and smiling at camera. He wears a grey sweater and glasses.

B.Arch. Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima (2004); M.Arch. Cornell University (2011)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Urban metabolism & the city as a system 

  • Entropy in architecture and urban development.  

  • Thermodynamics within the city 

  • Sustainable design & ecology 

  • Social and environmental impacts of the built environment

 

Thesis title (provisional): An urban metabolism study from a thermodynamic perspective. 2050 low entropy cities.

 

Supervisor: Naomi Keena

Email: daniel.rondinel [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Ali Reza Shahbazin

Ali looking directly at us slightly smiling with a wooden arched background

BS in Arch, Qazvin Azad University, QIAU, Iran (2013); MArch, Savannah College of Art and Design, SCAD, USA (2018)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • City Novels
  • Imaginary Cities
  • Architecture and Literature
  • Fictive Space
  • Middle Eastern Art and Architecture Studies
  • Narrative Architecture

 

Thesis title: “The Depiction of a ‘City’ as a ‘Protagonist’ in the Middle Eastern City Novels”

 

Supervisors: Alberto Pérez-Gómez/Sandeep Banerjee

Email: ali.shahbazin [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Cigdem Talu

Student smiling at Camera. Behind is a white backdrop.

B.Arch, Politecnico di Milano (2012); M.Arch (Professional), Politecnico di Milano (2015); M.Arch (Post-Professional, History and Theory of Architecture), McGill University (2016)

 

Research Interests and Specializations:

  • Nineteenth-century architecture and urban atmospheres in London
  • Gender, sexuality, and space
  • Late-Victorian women’s press and magazines
  • Public space and social agency

 

Thesis title: Women writers in the metropolis: Urban atmospheres in late-Victorian London

 

Supervisor: Martin Bressani

Email: merve.talu [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Beatriz Takahashi

Supervisor: Ipek Türeli

Email: beatriz.takahashi [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Giacomo Valzania

Giacomo standing hands at his waist infront of a tree-lined road.

M.Arch, University of Bologna (2013); M.Arch. Post-prof. Urban Design and Housing, McGill University (2017)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • Suburban landscapes
  • Collectivehousing
  • Urban space and right to the city
  • Immigration
  • Postmodernity

 

Thesis title: Of homes, domains, and boundaries : Immigration and the change of Toronto’s postwar suburbs since 1980.

 

Supervisor: Nik Luka

Email: giacomo.valzania [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Erica Vinson

Supervisor: Annmarie Adams

Email: erica.vinson [at] mail.mcgill.ca


Katrin Zavgorodny-Freedman

Katrin smiling toward the camera

BA (Hons.) Art History, University of Toronto (2019), MA Art History, University of Toronto (2021)

 

Research interests and specializations:

  • West coast and Canadian architectural history
  • Collaborative and professional architectural networks
  • Art history

 

Thesis title: Building Pluralism: The Impact of Collaboration in Vancouver Architecture on Canadian Identity Building, 1963-1983

 

Supervisors: Annmarie Adams/David Theodore

Emailkatrin.zavgorodny-freedman [at] mail.mcgill.ca


 
Back to top