Lydia Kallipoliti is an architect, engineer and scholar whose research focuses on the intersections of architecture, technology and environmental politics. She is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and the Director of the Master of Science Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to RPI, she has taught at Syracuse University, Columbia University [GSAPP], Pratt Institute and the Cooper Union, where she also served as a Senior Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Design and as the Feltman Chair in Lighting. She is the principal of ANAcycle design + writing studio in Brooklyn, New York, awarded as a Leading Innovator in Sustainable Design from Build’s 2019 awards.
Kallipoliti is the editor of a special issue of Architectural Design in 2011, and the author of the book The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What is the Power of Shit (Lars Muller, 2018), as well as the History of Ecological Design for Oxford English Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Her work has been exhibited in a number of international venues including the Venice Biennial, the Istanbul Design Biennial, the Shenzhen Biennial, the Royal Academy of British Architects and the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Kallipoliti is the recipient of an honor at the 14th Webby Awards, grants from the Graham Foundation, and the New York State Council for the Arts, an Honorable Mention at the Shenzhen Biennial, a Fulbright scholarship, and the ACSA annual award for Creative Achievement. Recently, she has been recognized as a Leading Innovator in Sustainable Design in BUILD’s 2019 Design & Build Awards, while her book was a finalist among all publications in design, art and architecture in 2018 for the Cornish Family Prize by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. She holds a Diploma in Architecture and Engineering from AUTh in Greece, a SMArchS from MIT and a PhD from Princeton University.