Greetings from MSU School of Architecture!
It is a sign that it has been a busy year when the first newsletter of 2025 arrives in July! Not only have we been attending to the usual architectural endeavors in a program that has grown to nearly 300 students, but we hosted a NAAB visiting team for our continuing accreditation and invited 10 faculty candidates to campus. We didn’t stop our regular spring events of the Design Leadership Workshop, the Career Expo, and the Harrison Lecture Series, and even added a few more, like hosting a speaker from the National Science Foundation and a MSU Spring Preview Day, as well as our typical Spring Advisory Board meeting, the Mississippi State Board of Architects meeting, and the MSU School of Architecture Alumni Design Awards. Weeks with only two events seemed slow!
As we prepare for the 2025-2026 academic year, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Sepideh Korsavi and Dr. Mojtaba Parsaee to our faculty. Dr. Korsavi will teach in our environmental building systems courses and studio and welcome her to Starkville from her post-doctoral position at Penn State and her prior doctoral work in the UK. Dr. Parsaee will join as a joint appointment in the School of Architecture and the Data Science program, and we welcome him from his faculty position at Indiana State University. Our own Associate Professor Jacob Gines has accepted a joint appointment as well—he’ll be an Endowed Professor in the Department of Sustainable Bioproducts, leading research in that department while teaching studio at the School of Architecture. Finally, for faculty changes, I will be moving to faculty, and I’m thrilled to have David Buege stepping in as Visiting Professor and Director of the Jackson Center and Professor Jassen Callender stepping in as Interim Director. Jassen’s history in the program and his connection to the state, not to mention his perspective on education in architecture, makes him a wonderful fit for leading the school. Please help me welcome him and wish him the best in these next years of his service!
All the best,
Karen Cordes Spence, Ph.D., AIA, LEED AP
Director and F.L. Crane Professor