Rate My Professor Shadi Nazarian

Shadi Nazarian is Professor and the inaugural H. Ralph Hawkins, FAIA, Endowed Chair in Architecture in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, appointed September 1, 2023. In this role, she leads initiatives in sustainable material and fabrication research. Prior to joining UTA, she was Associate Research Professor in the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University from 2012 to 2023, where she founded the Transitional Material Interface Laboratory and co-founded the Additive Construction Laboratory. Her earlier academic appointments include Clinical Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo (2002-2011) and Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University (1999-2002). Nazarian earned a post-professional Master of Architecture from Cornell University in 1989, with concentrations in architectural design and theory, as well as a Professional Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Minnesota in 1983. She maintains professional practice as Partner at Studio for Architecture since 1994 and Co-Founder and Lead for Architectural Design at X-Hab 3D since 2022.

Nazarian's scholarship centers on 3D concrete printing, additive manufacturing of architectural structures, and development of sustainable, low-carbon construction materials. She led an interdisciplinary team to multiple successes in NASA's 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge from 2017 to 2019, securing nearly $1 million in prizes, including second place in Phase 3 On-Site Habitat Construction ($200,000, 2019) and Phase 3 Foundation Test ($32,915, 2018). Additional honors include the Golden Medal at Innowings 2022 for a novel 3D printing mixture design using granulated cork, the Humanitarian Materials Award from Penn State's Material Research Institute (2022), and the Ben Franklin TechCelerator Program Award ($15,000, 2020). Her peer-reviewed publications feature 'A grammar-based algorithm for toolpath generation: Compensating for material deformation in the additive manufacturing of concrete' (Journal of Additive Manufacturing, 2022), 'Mixture Design and Mechanical Properties of Sustainable Cementitious Materials for 3D Printing' (Results in Engineering, 2022), 'Experimental calibration and compensation for the continuous effect of time, number of layers and volume of material shape deformation in small-scale additive manufacturing of concrete' (Additive Manufacturing, 2021), and 'Design and System Considerations for Construction-Scale Concrete Additive Manufacturing via Robotic Arm Deposition' (3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing, 2021). Nazarian received the Interdisciplinary Research Program Grant at UTA in 2026 and earlier awards such as the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (2000).