Current and Past Members
Faculty Members
Negar Heidari Matin, Ph.D., WELL AP, LEED GA
Director and Founder
Negar H.Matin, PhD, LEED GA, is an Assistant Professor in Interior Design at the Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. She holds PhD in Technology with concentration on Interior Design from the College of Engineering and Technology at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) where she was selected as a doctoral fellow for five continues years working on high-performance building systems and their impact on occupants’ comfort and building energy consumption. Her research interest is an interdisciplinary area between interior architecture, building science, and advanced technology. She is the recipient of various awards such as EMU Outstanding PhD Student of the Year, GRC Outstanding Poster Presentation, and Jones-Beckwith Advanced Graduate Studies scholarship. In 2021, Dr. Matin established the OU High-Performance Interior Architecture Laboratory (HPIA Lab) to design and develop high-performance building interiors to provide comfort and well-being for occupants with ultimate energy efficiency.
Current Student Members
Zhina Rashidzadeh
Graduate Research Assistant
Zhina Rashidzadeh is a Ph.D. student in planning design and construction at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She graduated from Tabriz University with a bachelor’s degree in Architectural engineering. However, her interest in parametric design urged her to pursue her Master’s in computational design. Currently, she is a research assistant at the OU High-Performance Interior Architecture Laboratory (HPIA Lab) at Gibbs College of Architecture at OU, she is working on different research projects to optimize the performance of responsive facades. As an OU Graduate Student Senate Grant winner, she dedicated her academic studies to sustainable design, advanced technology, and responsive/interactive facade design.
Shiva Azizi
Graduate Research Assistant
Shiva Azizi is a Master’s student at the University of Oklahoma (OU) studying Planning, Design, and Construction. After graduating from Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan, Iran with a Bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering, she earned a Master’s degree in Architectural and Building Sciences from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran, where she combined biophilic design with computational tools to enhance thermal comfort in traditional Iranian architecture. Currently, she is a research assistant at the Gibbs College of Architecture’s High-Performance Interior Architecture Laboratory (HPIA Lab). As part of her research, she explores the use of smart materials in responsive facades to optimize daylighting through the use of advanced computational design and material technologies.
Nameethae Ganapathiseril Baburaj
Graduate Reseach Assistant
Past Student Members
Sara Rahmani
Graduate Research Assistant
sararahmani@ou.edu