Ingeborg Rocker

Ingeborg Rocker's profile picture
irocker3@gatech.edu

Ingeborg Rocker is a senior executive of sustainable Industry Innovation & Transformation. In 2014, she joined the international software company Dassault Systemes, as the Vice President, where she developed Sustainable Cross- Industry Innovations from strategy to realization. Within this context, she launched the Smart City Project 3DEXPERIENCity, virtualizing Singapore City State and developed cyber-physical systems with the manufacturing and construction industry, placing software and hardware in the loop for the enhanced simulation, optimization, automation, operation, and maintenance of assets and processes. I. Rocker’s ongoing work focuses on sustainable cross-industry innovation fostering a circular economy. 

Ingeborg is a practicing architect, who worked as lead designer with Peter Eisenman on the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. In 2006, she co-founded Rocker-Lange Architect, a research-focused architecture firm located in Boston and Hong Kong. The office works across scales on computer-generated sustainable product design, architecture, and urbanism. The office has been recognized for its written and design work emphasizing the role the digital medium plays in the conception and realization of sustainable cross-scale design interventions. 

She holds a Dipl.-Ing in Engineering from the RWTH Aachen, an MSAAD from Columbia University, and a MA, and Ph.D., from Princeton. She is an enthusiastic educator, researcher, and academic with extensive teaching experience at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University, where she worked as an Associate and Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Design, and served as the Director of MARCH 1 Admissions, the Director of the Digital Workshop Series, the Director of the International Exchange Programs, and the Coordinator of MARCH Core- and Option studios. She is a dedicated researcher and advised more than 40+ thesis and doctoral students. 

Dr. Rocker is an academic and industry thought leader who frequently presents on sustainable industry innovation, transformation, and associated business models. Her work has been internationally published and contributes to the discourses in the industry and academy. She has presented and exhibited her work internationally and received local, national, and international recognition and awards.

Professor
Chair Industry Innovation & Digital Transformation Research
Faculty Scholar In Residence
University, College, and School/Department

Tarek Rakha

Tarek Rakha's profile picture
rakha@design.gatech.edu

Tarek Rakha is a researcher, educator, and entrepreneur who integrates building design technology and environmental sustainability with the needs of underserved communities. He is Associate Professor of Architecture and Director of the High Performance Building Lab (HPBL) at Georgia Tech, and Co-founder and CEO of Lamarr.AI, a startup that commercializes technology developed through his funded academic research. Tarek is an architect by training, and before joining Georgia Tech in 2019 he was Assistant Professor at Syracuse University, after earning a Ph.D. in Building Technology from MIT in 2015.

Tarek develops novel areas of scholarship focusing on aerial data and robotics for building envelope diagnostics using computer-vision drones, urban energy sensing and computational informatics, as well as heat vulnerability and outdoor thermal comfort modeling at the building and neighborhood scales. His research received support worth over $4M (total project volume ~$7M) from federal agencies such as the US DOE, ARPA-E, and the NSF. His work was also funded by state authorities such as NYSERDA and both NYSDOT and GDOT, philanthropies such as the Sloan Foundation, as well as corporate sponsors including the Coca-Cola Company. He has published his work as author and co-author in more than 70 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and two have won best paper awards in conferences. He was recently nationally recognized by the Emerging Contributor Award from IBPSA-USA.

As an educator, Tarek connects design, technology, and climate change-centered studios and courses with social justice and the needs of marginalized communities. He was awarded the Georgia Tech Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 Award based on exceptional student evaluation surveys. In 2022, He mentored the DOE’s Solar Decathlon Design Challenge Residential Division Grand Winner team. The team also took home first place in the contest's new Retrofit Housing division. In addition, student groups in his co-taught design studio competed against 400+ submissions in the AIA and ACSA’s 2019 International Design Competition: Here+Now, and won 1st Place and an Honorable Mention (2/6 awards). Furthermore, he coalesces service with his scholarship. He was invited to the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design’s board (SimAUD), and co-edited two conference proceedings as the 2018 General Chair in TU Delft and as the 2019 Program Chair and host of the 10-year anniversary at Georgia Tech.

Visit the High Performance Building Lab
Associate Professor, School of Architecture
Director, High Performance Building Lab
University, College, and School/Department