Masoud Akbarzadeh is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and PSL director, with a background in architectural design, computation, and structural engineering. He holds a D.Sc. from ETH Zurich, two degrees from MIT, and a degree in Earthquake Engineering and Dynamics of Structures from Iran University of Science and Technology. His main research topic is Three-Dimensional Graphical Statics, a novel geometric method of structural design in 3D. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2020 and co-PIs a $4.6M NSF grant investigating high-performance, self-Morphing building blocks. He also received a $2.4M ARPA-E Grant for designing Carbon-Negative Buildings starting Sept. 2022.

Yao is currently a Ph.D. student at the Polyhedral Structures Laboratory, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. He is a design researcher with a great interest in generative design, robotic fabrication, 3D printing, and computer graphics. Before joining PSL, he graduated from Cornell University with a Master of Science in Matter Design Computation, advised by Prof. Jenny Sabin, Prof. Christopher Hernandez, and Prof. Steve Marschner. His primary research focused on generating bio-inspired load-bearing lattice structures in various scales. He also holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor in Engineering degree from Tongji University, advised by Prof. Ming Zhang.