The Kent State University College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) has announced that Associate Professor Ivan Bernal has been appointed the new Director of Architecture programs. Professor Bernal, currently serves as a Guest Curator at the A+D Museum in Los Angeles. 

Before arriving at Kent State, Ivan served as an Assistant Professor in the School of Architecture at Syracuse University. Before joining Syracuse, he served as full-time faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) where he also completed his Master of Architecture degree with honors and won the highly competitive Best Thesis Prize.

Bernal succeeds Jonathan Fleming, who served as the Director of Architecture programs for the past nine years. “I look forward to continuing the legacy the school has achieved under Jonathan’s Directorship. It maintains a trajectory of formidable achievements and high standards; I am excited to help postulate its new vision for a fast-changing discipline,” Bernal added.

Professor Bernal was born into a family of architects in Bogota, Colombia. He remembers visiting social housing construction sites, participating in design conversations, and witnessing the entire architectural process from a young age. Before opening his own practice, Bernal led studios in South America and the United States. His work has been exhibited in galleries around the world, and his research sits at the intersection of formal familiarity and non-traditional representation techniques exploring alternate realities.