Vernelle A. A. Noel will join the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture for the Fall 2018 semester as a Ventulett NEXT Generation Visiting Fellow (NEXT Fellowship).

The NEXT Fellowship is a two-year appointment intended for young faculty who are at the beginning of their careers and are interested in interdisciplinary teaching and research that merges design, technology and culture. The initiative was introduced in the fall of 2017 when Jonathan Dessi-Olive was appointed as the first Ventulett NEXT Generation Visiting Fellow. Noel will join Dessi-Olive for the 2018-2019 academic year.

Noel kicked off her career with an impressive list of accomplishments that will lend themselves to her position as a NEXT Fellow. As a research scientist, computational designer, artist and architect, her work largely focuses on craft and cultural design practices, computational making, and lightweight architecture.

After earning her professional degree in architecture from Howard University, Noel worked with Burt Hill, an international design firm in Washington, D.C. and Ahmedabad, India. She later graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master of Science in Architecture Studies from the Design Computation Group and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in design computing at Penn State University.

Noel taught design computation and digital design and fabrication at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She is also the founder, creator and editor of Architecture Caribbean, an online platform that showcased and promoted design by Caribbean nationals. In 2015, Noel gave a TEDx Talk titled, “The Power of Making: Craft, Computation, and Carnival” at TEDxPortofSpain.

Ventulett NEXT Generation Fellows teach design studios and workshops at both the undergraduate and graduate level and participate actively in the life of the school. Noel and Dessi-Olive will work together in the 2018-2019 year to advance their individual interests in teaching and design research.