Robert Aish
www.autodesk.com
Robert Aish is a founder member of the SmartGeometry Group who are concerned with the wider educational implications of the teaching and practice of parametric design. In this context, Robert Aish is currently working with a number of leading architectural practices including Foster and Partners, Morphosis, KPF, Grimshaw, NBBJ, ONL and su11 and a number of Schools of Architecture, including the Architectural Association, MIT, Georgia Tech. and the Technical University of Delft.
Hernan Diaz-Alonso
www.xefirotarch.com
Hernan Diaz-Alonso is the principal and founder of Xefirotarch, and practices architecture in Los Angeles and New York. He is a faculty member of Sci-Arc and is a visiting professor at Columbia University and The Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts, in Vienna.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1969, he received his architecture degrees from the National University of Rosario, and from Columbia University's AAD Program from which he graduated from with honors and received several design awards. In 1996, he worked as a Designer in the office of Enric Miralles in Barcelona; he also has been senior designer-project architect in Eisenman Architects in New York. (2000-2001).
Helene Furjan
www.design.upenn.edu
Helene Furjan teaches history, theory and design of architecture. Has taught at the Architectural Association (London), UCLA, SCI-Arc, and most recently at Rice University. Scholarship on John Soane and Adolf Loos has been published in Assemblage, Journal of Architecture, AA Files and Grey Room, with essays forthcoming on the C19th interior, format, network theory and contemporary practice. She is co-editor with Sylvia Lavin of the forthcoming publication, The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful: A Primer on Contemporary States of Architecture.
Fotini Makopoulou
www.perimeterinstitute.ca
Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara, who was born in Greece but now works at the Perimeter Institute in Canada, has played a key role in developing an alternative to string theory, known as loop quantum gravity, or LQG. Like string theory, LQG seeks to fulfill Einstein's dream of unifying quantum theory and general relativity. But unlike string theory, LQG doesn't dwell on extra rolled-up dimensions of space. Instead, it lays out a mathematical system of loops that interact to form "spin networks," the quantum foundations for the realities that each of us perceive. Markopoulou-Kalamara focuses on how spin networks reflecting the partial views of different observers can be combined to produce a shared perception of the universe. LQG predicts that there should be some non-Einsteinian anomalies in how light photons travel, based on their energy — and so the theory's proponents hope that future results from NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, due for launch in 2007, will show whether they're on the right track.
