Daniel Cardoso Llach
Associate Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs; Associate Professor, School of Architecture; Track Chair, Computational Design
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Bio
Daniel Cardoso Llach was named Associate Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs for the College of Fine Arts by Dean Mary Ellen Poole in 2025. He also serves as Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, where he chairs the graduate program in Computational Design and directs the CodeLab. He is the author of publications, exhibitions and technologies critically exploring the nexus of design and computation.
Cardoso Llach received a Ph.D. and a M.S. in Architecture: Design and Computation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.Arch from Universidad de los Andes. In 2016, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge’s Martin Centre in the UK and a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study of Media Cultures of Computer Simulation in Leuphana, Germany. He has held faculty appointments at The Pennsylvania State University and Universidad de los Andes, consulted as a computational design specialist for Gehry Technologies and Kohn Pedersen Fox, among others, and practiced as a licensed architect and media designer in his native Bogotá, Colombia.
Cardoso Llach’s interdisciplinary research and teaching develop along two related threads. The first is a critical reconstruction of the interplay of design and computation during the second half of the 20th century. Organized around archival, ethnographic and curatorial research, this thread illuminates the emergence of new disciplinary and discursive configurations of design alongside postwar era research into computing and reflects critically on their repercussions on architecture and other creative disciplines.
The second thread of his work focuses on developing cross-disciplinary research and pedagogical frameworks to mobilize computational methods critically towards architecture and design, and to cultivate critical technical practitioners and researchers. He pursues it through applied research and learning projects involving students, colleagues and industry partners; through academic leadership; and by creating or supporting innovative knowledge platforms.
As a research advisor and mentor, Cardoso Llach is especially interested in working with students who are motivated to bridge an experimental disposition towards design and technology with historical, critical or artistic modes of inquiry and reflection.
