Assistant Professor of Architecture, Computation and Representation, Fall 2026

Description

The School of Architecture at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) invites applications for multiple tenure-track faculty members at the Assistant Professor rank to begin August 1, 2026. These positions are for full-time 9-month appointments. Applications for the rank of Associate Professor will be considered.

We are seeking inventive, collaborative, and critically-minded candidates whose research and teaching creatively engage with the fields of computation and representation in architecture. As architecture’s relationship with computation continues to expand—from digital fabrication and machine learning to generative design and advanced visualization—it is incumbent upon the discipline to more carefully craft its engagement with these emerging technological, cultural, and aesthetic conditions. At the same time, architectural practice is evolving alongside new technologies, from robotics and artificial intelligence to virtual reality and bio-material systems, where computational and representational expertise provide critical means to design with and think through data, to visualize complex phenomena, and to reassess the nature of authorship, agency, and form in the digital age.

We welcome a broad range of expertise within this area, including but not limited to: computational theory and criticism; advanced digital design and fabrication practices; creative visualization, rendering, and generative image-making; inventive approaches to building information modeling; and digital workflows for design and construction. Processes, tools, and methods that position architecture as both a technical and cultural practice—one capable of engaging with the complexities of computation, automation, and visualization as they shape contemporary life—are especially valued. Subtopics of concern might include, but are not limited to:

Computation and materiality: robotic fabrication, bio- or nano-material systems, performance simulation, design analysis, responsive environments, parametric and algorithmic design.

Computation and culture: artificial intelligence and creative agency, digital image cultures, data ethics and authorship, planetary-scale computation and its architectural implications.

Computation and representation: visualization, simulation, and narrative as design media; hybrid digital-physical processes; immersive and extended reality environments; generative drawing, scanning, sensing, and mapping as modes of inquiry.

Candidates should demonstrate the ability to teach design studios and contribute to both required and elective courses in the undergraduate and graduate architecture programs. Recent curricular developments in the B.Arch and M.Arch programs have expanded opportunities in computation, digital workflows, and representational literacy. The successful candidate will play a key role in shaping these courses and integrating them into the broader curriculum through their expertise and pedagogical vision.

Candidates are expected to build upon and extend the school’s existing strengths while establishing a strong research and/or creative agenda leading to tenure. Candidates should describe a proposed research agenda comprised of creative work, scholarly publication, technical innovation, and/or speculative or critical inquiry at the intersection of design, computation, and representation. Start-up funding is available to support the development of research in the candidate’s area of specialization.

About the School

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is a Research-1, land-grant university that houses eleven colleges and more than nine hundred programs of study. The College of Architecture and Design promotes imaginative, curious, and empathetic design, offering degrees in Architecture, Interior Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Graphic Design. The School of Architecture is committed to excellence in design education, creative activity, research, and outreach missions. The school’s growing faculty of around thirty full-time faculty members represent a breadth of creative experience, academic expertise, and innovative teaching for more than 400 architecture students. Generous state scholarship programs make education accessible to students from a broad range of backgrounds and income levels. Over 30% of our students are from out-of-state or are international. 

The College is committed to access, engagement and addressing the family needs of faculty members including dual-career couples, sole-provider or single-parent families, and faculty with family caretaking responsibilities.

The College of Architecture and Design meets for courses and cultural activities in three main facil