Meet the College’s Newest Faculty Members
The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is pleased to welcome several new faculty members whose expertise, creativity, and professional experience will enrich the college’s teaching, research, and engagement with communities and industry.
Andrew Bako, Architecture, Assistant Professor
Andy Bako, OAA, is an architect, computational designer and founder of ABAD Co., a multidisciplinary design practice based in Toronto. Prior to joining UT, he was the 2024–26 Emerging Scholar in Design at the University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture and the 2023–24 Schidlowski Emerging Faculty Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design. He has also held teaching positions at the University of Toronto and Carleton University.Ìý
Bako’s research examines how architecture mediates exchanges between material reuse, computation, and authorship, positioning recycling as a generative framework in which materials operate as both matter and data. His work investigates how digital tools—including machine learning, photogrammetry, and mixed reality—enable materials, machines, and designers to shape the built environment through reciprocal influence.Ìý
Bako holds a Master of Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, where he received the 2019 Digital Design Prize. His writing has appeared inÌýThe Plan Journal, UCLAÌýPOOL,ÌýPidginÌý(Princeton), and YaleÌýPaprika!, and his work has been presented at ACSA and ACADIA. His professional experience includes work with Adamson Associates Architects and OMA, as well as computational design collaborations with Volkan Alkanoglu Design LLC on large-scale public art installations.
Cameron Kursel, Architecture, Digital Futures Fellow
Cameron R. Kursel is a designer, maker, and educator. Drawing on professional experience in architecture and fabrication, he works across objects and installations to investigate how material practice, labor, and craft shape architectural thinking. Humor, misuse, and experimentation serve as methods for questioning conventions of architectural production and the expectations placed on architectural objects. Kursel holds a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Leah Wulfman, Interior Architecture, Assistant Professor
Leah Wulfman is a Carrier Bag architect, educator, game designer, digital puppeteer, and occasional writer. Wulfman assembles hybrid virtual and physical spaces in order to prototype new relationships to technology and nature, as well as challenge normative ideologies so often reinforced by technology and architecture. In addition to mixed reality installations that play with and emphasize the physical, material basis of everything digital, their research focuses on gamified environments, interactions and materials.
Wulfman holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Science in Fiction and Entertainment from SCI-Arc. They have taught at numerous institutions across the United States, including ArtCenter’s Media Design Practices Graduate Program, the IDEAS Program at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, Multi-Disciplinary Design at the University of Utah, SCI-Arc, The School of Architecture at Taliesin, and the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, where they have developed youth programming, environmental storytelling, world building, game development, and mixed reality coursework.
Their research and design work has been supported through numerous residencies and publications and presented in exhibitions and festivals including the Buenos Aires Architecture Biennale,ÌýAfter School,ÌýThe FiDi Arsenale, Space Saloon Design + Build Festival, Open Engagement, VIA Festival for Electronic Art and Music,ÌýA Queer Query, /imagine: A Journey into the New Virtual, and The Wrong Biennale for New Digital Art.
Wulfman is the recipient of the 2024 Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers, and the 2025 United States Artists (USA) Fellowship.
Tianwei Ye, Architecture, Assistant Professor of Practice
Tianwei Ye joins as an Assistant Professor of Practice after 10 years in the architecture industry. Most recently, he served as a Design Technology Leader at Gensler in New York, where he specialized in BIM, computational design, visualization, and digital workflows. At UT, he looks forward to helping students bridge design and technology while preparing them for the future of architectural practice.
Xiaoxiao Zhao, Interior Architecture, Fellow
Xiaoxiao Zhao is an artist and architect, founder of USEFULLESS Studio. Her practice ranges from architectural design to interactive installation and media art. She was a 2025-2026 fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she conducted research on the environmental impacts of data centers and developed a VR game exploring the subject. She holds a Diploma in Architecture from China Central Academy of Fine Arts and a Master in Architecture from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She has worked as an architect at Rockwell Group in New York. Her artworks have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Design Shanghai, UCCA Clay Museum, Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center, among others. Her papers have been published at the ACADIA conference.
The college welcomes Jordan Cleek (’26) and Emily Lavoll (’26) who join the School of Architecture as lecturers.
Their arrival reflects the college’s continued investment in academic excellence and its commitment to preparing students to address complex challenges through design.
Please join us in welcoming our newest faculty members to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.