Welcome, New CAPLA Faculty!
We’re excited to welcome several new faculty members to CAPLA this academic year, bringing fresh perspectives, expertise and energy to our community. Join us in welcoming these talented educators and scholars as they contribute to our teaching, research and the future of the built environment.
We welcomed six new faculty for the academic year:
School of Architecture
Yao Lu
Assistant Professor
Yao Lu is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Arizona. His research explores how structural forms, material constraints, and computational methods can inform architectural design. His work focuses on structural form-finding methods, polyhedral graphic statics, computational geometry, lightweight sheet-based structures, and design-to-fabrication workflows. Through computational modeling, software development, and full-scale prototyping, he investigates how complex structural forms can be designed and realized with greater material efficiency. His research has received the IASS Hangai Prize and the Young CAADRIA Award.
Hanin Othman
Assistant Professor, Research & Designer
Hanin Othman is an architect, researcher, and educator whose work integrates architecture, environmental sensing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and sustainable building technologies to advance healthier and more resilient built environments. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Arizona. She earned her Ph.D. in Architecture from The Pennsylvania State University, where she developed innovative approaches for monitoring and modeling indoor environmental quality using low-cost sensing technologies, autonomous robotics, and digital systems.
Her research focuses on developing intelligent cyber-physical systems that combine Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, autonomous mobile robotics, digital twins, and machine learning to improve environmental performance, human health, and building sustainability. Her work has pioneered hybrid fixed-mobile sensing frameworks that integrate stationary sensor networks with robotic platforms to generate high-resolution spatial maps of indoor environmental conditions. By combining calibrated low-cost sensors, real-time data visualization, and predictive analytics, she develops scalable approaches for creating dynamic digital representations of buildings that support data-driven design, operation, and decision-making.
As an educator, Dr. Othman integrates research, design, and emerging technologies into architectural education through interdisciplinary, project-based learning. Her long-term research vision is to develop autonomous environmental intelligence systems that leverage sensing, artificial intelligence, and digital twins to transform the design, monitoring, and operation of buildings and cities in response to climate change and human health challenges.
Angela Person
Professor of Architecture
Angela M. Person, PhD (pronounced “Pierce-uhn”), is Professor of Architecture in the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture and Executive Director of Museums & Community Engagement in the university’s Office of Research & Partnerships. Her research and curatorial work bridge architectural history and theory, cultural geography, and public humanities.
Before joining the University of Arizona, Person served as Associate Dean for Research and External Engagement at the University of Oklahoma’s Gibbs College of Architecture. In that role, she supported faculty research, interdisciplinary initiatives, external partnerships, public scholarship, and institutional visibility.
Across her courses, exhibitions, and collaborative projects, Person works with students to examine how buildings and cultural landscapes become sites of public memory, community identity, environmental concern, and debate over preservation, repair, and reuse. Her teaching and mentoring have been recognized with awards for student research, course development, environmental stewardship, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. The student journal Telesis was recognized three times with the Center for Architecture’s Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals during her service as faculty advisor.
Yang Yang
Assistant Professor
Yang Yang is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Arizona’s College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA) and a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering. Trained in architecture and systems engineering, she works at the intersection of computational design, built-environment modeling, and human–environment systems. She holds a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Cornell University, with concentrations in City and Regional Planning and Transportation Systems Engineering, and professional degrees in architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai.
Dr. Yang’s research integrates computational modeling, simulation, artificial intelligence, and data analytics into building and urban design. Her work spans agent-based modeling, machine learning, spatial and behavioral simulation, urban digital twins, and computational decision support, with applications in mobility, building performance, environmental resilience, and human-centered design.
Dr. Yang teaches computational design, digital modeling, simulation, and performance-driven design across undergraduate and graduate curricula. Her teaching emphasizes both the development of rigorous computational skills and the ability to critically interpret models, data, and simulations as tools for design reasoning and decision-making.
School of Landscape Architecture & Planning
Yining Lei
Assistant Professor, Real Estate Development and Urban Planning
Yining Lei (pronounced yee-ning lay), PhD, AICP, specializes in housing policy, neighborhood change, and advanced research methods. Her research examines how housing policies shape residential stability and mobility, and how people weather and grapple with these policies. Methodologically, she is interested in using novel data sources and technologies as tools to answer these questions. Her work has been funded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and published in journals including Land Use Policy, Housing Policy Debate, and Journal of Planning Literature.
Yining received her Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University, and a B.Eng. in Construction Management and a B.A. in English Language from Tsinghua University. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Yining worked as a research analyst and GIS coordinator at the New York City Housing Authority.
Julie Mathews
Adjunct Lecturer
