New faculty

Rice Architecture is pleased to welcome five new faculty members this spring: Stephanie Choi (Visiting Critic), Jaleh Jalili (Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology), Ajay Manthripragada (Visiting Critic),  and Ünal Karamuk and Jeannette Kuo (Cullinan Visiting Critics).  

“We are thrilled to welcome our newest colleagues to MD Anderson Hall,” said Igor Marjanović, the William Ward Watkin Dean of Rice Architecture. “They bring a tremendous breadth of experiences and architectural approaches, and I am particularly delighted that the designers of our new building, Ünal Karamuk and Jeannette Kuo, will serve as the Cullinan Visiting Critics this spring. Their option studio, focused on roofs, will unfold as our new building is being constructed, the William T. Cannady Hall for Architecture, whose airy, sawtooth roof is its main frame of reference and an inspiring backdrop for our collaborative ateliers.”

Stephanie Choi is the founder of Daphne, a design practice that works on the intersection of architecture, installation, and video. An architect, artist, and educator, she previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Parsons, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She also worked at Bjarke Ingels Group New York, Urbanus Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and Front New York and Hong Kong.  

Jaleh Jalili teaches courses in architecture and sociology. Trained as an architect and urban designer, she studies urban sociology globally, including in Iran and the United States, with a particular emphasis on social movements, culture, gender, and inequality. Her work explores how public spaces mediate social relations in rapidly changing urban environments and examines the social, political, and cultural meanings of space.

Ajay Manthripragada directs an independent practice in California, Manthripragada, and teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Combining simple geometries and delicate volumes—as well as an investment in drawing and representation—his work demonstrates an investment in the very fundamentals of the discipline of architecture. He was previously a Wortham Fellow and Harry K. and Albert K. Smith Critic at Rice Architecture. 

Ünal Karamuk and Jeannette Kuo are founding partners of Karamuk Kuo Architects based in Zurich. Established in 2010, the firm has focused on the intersection of spatial concepts with constructive technologies to approach architecture from its most fundamental sources. Karamuk Kuo works on a range of scales, from spatial installations and exhibitions to complex cultural projects and has been published in numerous international journals including Archithese, Werk, Bau + Wohnen, Casabella, and Architectural Review. They are currently working on the new Cannady Hall building extension for Rice Architecture, which is scheduled to open in 2024.

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