Architect and building science expert joins UB to drive climate action with big data

Today, he joins the University at Buffalo to push the transdisciplinary potential of his research and train future designers as a faculty member in architecture and inaugural director of UB’s Building and Environment Visualization Lab.

Etman, a native of Egypt, comes to UB’s School of Architecture and Planning from the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (CEA), where he developed SEVA, or Socio-Ecological Visual Analytics, an interactive dashboard that synthesizes socio-ecological, health and building system data to support resilient and sustainable urban development.

The tool and its methodology are already driving global climate initiatives, including the United Nations-sponsored “Great Green Wall,” a transcontinental initiative to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land in Africa, and the International Drought Resilience Observatory, an AI-powered database facilitating global collaboration on drought mitigation (the prototype of which was unveiled earlier this month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the landmark session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification COP16). Etman’s efforts have significantly shaped this resource for tackling drought challenges. The complete version of IDRO is scheduled to debut at UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia in 2026, indicating a global shift towards proactive drought management and equipping diverse stakeholders with actionable insights to enhance resilience. Etman’s research is also behind the UN Environmental Program’s World Situation Room and an effort in North Africa to support rationalized water consumption

Prior to Yale, he was a member of CASE, the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his PhD in architecture and worked with mathematicians and computer scientists to develop the framework for SEVA.

Etman says designers are uniquely positioned to make sense of today’s pervasive world of data through the simple power of visualization. SEVA, for instance, can simulate socio-ecological impacts of design decisions by linking NASA satellite imagery, public data on land and water, and outputs from building sensors and wearable devices.

“Human, natural and built environments work in tandem. Yet, the data they generate are highly complex and rarely comparable,” he said.

“As architects, we visualize things. The ‘Internet of Things’ and interdisciplinary data make this not only easier but far more impactful,” he continued, adding that architects and engineers have become particularly facile with data due to building performance standards. Etman himself got his start in building science as a practicing architect in Egypt, where he led projects across Northern Africa, the Middle East and United States.

The full innovative potential of systems like SEVA, however, lies in its application beyond architecture, according to Etman. Consider the possibility of folding big data into design decisions at the regional and national scale, or broadening notions of “performance” from a building’s energy efficiency to the resilience of entire ecosystems.

“The key is to take this dynamic feedback on the built environment and make it intuitive and accessible to stakeholders at every level, from architects and building owners to policy makers and community leaders,” he said.

Etman sees UB as an ideal landing place for this work. Its School of Architecture and Planning, as a professional school situated within the most comprehensive public research university in the Northeast, is a national leader in practice-based research across the fields of inclusive design, climate resilience, global health equity and sustainable building technologies.

“UB offers a welcoming culture of collaboration. The amount of interdisciplinary research and diversity is exciting. I haven’t seen that anywhere else,” said Etman.

As director of the Building and Environment Visualization Lab, housed in Hayes Hall on UB’s South Campus, Etman hopes to engage new disciplines and industry partners and prepare students for the future of the profession through research opportunities and access to the lab’s tools and technologies.

Etman and a committee of architecture faculty are currently laying out a research agenda for the lab and acquiring tools and technology, from drones and VR systems to high-powered computing and software systems, all of which will be accessible to faculty and students across the university.

Etman has already joined grant applications with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to explore food systems (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and the College of Arts and Sciences to support sustainable tourism and the management of historic sites (U.S. Agency for International Development). He is working on additional submissions with the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access and on climate resilience with fellow architecture faculty member Nicholas Rajkovich.

“I also came to academia because I wanted to teach,” said Etman, who has taught environmental modeling to architects and urban planners through previous positions at the American University in Cairo, RPI, the City University of New York, and Yale. “I hope to engage students in developing new tools and creating models that test this research in real-world scenarios.”

Etman will expand industry engagement through the School of Architecture and Planning’s extensive network of public, private and nonprofit partners. His own research has been developed in collaboration with SHoP Architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), HeliOptix and FABS (Fresh Air Building Systems), among others.

In addition to a PhD, Etman holds an MArchII from RPI and an MSc from Cairo University.