Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering, Penn State

Nathan Brown is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering with Penn State. His research seeks to understand how structural considerations interact with other performance and architectural criteria in conceptual building design, and how computation can play a role in the creative process.

Brown has a particular interest in using computation to explore new structural design possibilities in mass timber, including floor systems and novel lateral systems. He was a member of the Digital Structures Research Group in the MIT Department of Architecture from 2014-2019, earning an SMBT degree in 2016 and a PhD in 2019. Brown also holds a BSE in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University with certificates in Architecture & Engineering and Urban Studies. He has worked for BuroHappold in Boston as a computational designer and on building energy retrofit projects for Elevate Energy in Chicago.

Corey Gracie-Griffin
Associate Director for Sustainability Research and Associate Professor of Architecture, Penn State

With graduate degrees in architecture and structural engineering, Corey Gracie-Griffin is the Associate Director for Sustainability Research at Penn State as well as an Associate Professor of Architecture. His research focuses on how to make new and existing buildings healthier, more productive, and resilient while simultaneously reducing their environmental impact with a recent emphasis on carbon-storing structural materials including mass timber and hemp-lime.

With over 30 peer-reviewed publications, Gracie-Griffin has secured more than $1.5M in external funding from a wide range of sources including federal and state agencies, foundations, and industry partners. His teaching has been nationally recognized as a model for advancing sustainability in higher education and architectural practice by AIA, ACSA, and Architecture 2030.

Samantha Leonard
Project engineer, RDH Building Science

Samantha Leonard, PhD, PE, is a project engineer with RDH Building Science, where she has worked as a building enclosure consultant for the past eight years. Leonard recently graduated with her PhD in Architectural Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, where she used parametric modeling methods to analyze mass timber structures for early-stage design decisions.

Her research on mass timber structures explores the intersection of multiple design goals, including embodied carbon, structural performance, prescriptive fire design, and acoustic insulation. Leonard’s research has appeared in multiple conferences, including the World Conference on Timber Engineering, Structures Congress, and the PHRC Residential Building Design & Construction Conference.

Leonard’s current work at RDH includes façade access consulting, roofing, and waterproofing review for new construction, embodied carbon research, and the development of training and publications