Awards

Research, teaching, and design distinctions.

2025 — AIA Florida Research Award (Theoretical & Research, Professional) — “Deep Ecological Design: A Method Framework for Leveraging AI to Learn Ecological Design Principles”

2024 — AIA Fort Lauderdale Research Award — “Deep-TEK: Towards Fine-Tuning Deep Learning Models to Learn from Traditional Ecological Knowledge”

2024 — AIA Florida Research Award — “Towards Greening Housing Projects in Florida: Net-Zero Apartment Building, Fort Lauderdale”

2024 — Faculty of the Year Award (Broward Campus), Florida Atlantic University

2023 — Educator of the Year Award, AIA Fort Lauderdale Design & Honor Awards

2022 — AIA Florida Research Award — “Airflow Simulation for Informing Environment Design: Apartment Housing in Tropical Climates” (with Prof. John Sandell)

2020 — NSF ADVANCE Fellowship Award, Florida Atlantic University

2018 — Scholar Award, Jonathan King Memorial Student Award, and Unsung Hero Award, Texas A&M University

2011 — Teaching Excellence Award, University of Duhok

2007 — Honorary Award, Distinctive Final Project, Architecture Exhibition of Graduation Projects, Rabat, Morocco

Students’ Design-Research Awards (Supervised)

2022 — ARCC King Student Medal — Yagmur Akyuz, “Incorporating Physical Experimentation into AI-Driven Design”

2021 — Editor’s Choice Award, New Den-cities competition (UNI-XYZ) — thesis of Cesarina Candelier and Tiffany Taylor