Honors College Faculty Fellows

Farzana Gandhi, M.Arch., AIA, LEED AP

Associate Professor, Architecture

Farzana Gandhi is a registered architect in New York and a LEED-accredited professional. Her architecture practice, Farzana Gandhi Design Studio, focuses on sustainable and socially conscious solutions, both locally and abroad. At New York Tech, she has been teaching introductory, advanced, and thesis-level architecture design studios, research-driven design-build elective courses, and visualization seminars.
Gandhi is most interested in how widespread social impact can be achieved by rethinking the relationship between architecture and its environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic framework. By acting at the intersection of multiple disciplines, a single intervention has the potential to act as a catalyst for systemic change. Her community outreach work in places like Dakar, Senegal, and Puerto Rico is driven by inquiry, investigation, and integration. She continues to bring this unique approach to design to the classroom, where her students are invited to tackle multi-layered, real-world problems and collaborate to test new dimensions of practice.

Kelly Lavin, OTD, OTR/L

Clinical Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy

Kelly Lavin, OTD, has over 20 years of experience providing services to children within the NYS Early Intervention Program. She has also worked in hospital and school-based settings. She has extensive continuing education and training in the areas of sensory integration and executive functioning. She served as New York Tech’s Academic Fieldwork Coordinator from 2014 through 2020 and served as an adjunct faculty at numerous occupational therapy programs.

Lavin has presented on a number of topics on local, national, and international platforms. She has participated in and led service-learning trips with New York Tech students to Haiti and Morocco. Lavin strongly believes that the immersive cultural experiences provided by service-learning trips enhance students’ didactic learning, challenge them to go out of their comfort zones, and help them grow into their professional roles.

Dongsei Kim, M.Des., M.Des., M.S. AUD, RA, ANZIA

Chair and Associate Professor, Architecture

Dongsei Kim is an architect, urbanist, and educator. His current research, focusing on architecture and urbanism’s relationship to nation-state borders across multiple scales, examines the notions of “inclusion” and “exclusion” and how “us” and ‘them’ are defined through various spatial practices. His research on the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has been internationally recognized through multiple exhibitions and publications.

Dongsei’s research on the DMZ border contributed to the Golden Lion award-winning “Crow’s Eye View: The Korean Peninsula” exhibition at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition directed by Rem Koolhaas (Venice, 2014). His work has been invited to respected international biennales and exhibitions, such as the International Architecture Exhibition at Venice (2021, 2014), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (Seoul, 2023, 2019, 2017); “(im)positions” at Melbourne School of Design (Melbourne, 2017); “Over the Boundary” at the State Library of Queensland (Brisbane, 2016); “REAL DMZ PROJECT” at Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 2015); “Making Border” at DNA Gallery (Berlin, 2015); and “Cold War, Hot Peace” at Slought (Philadelphia, 2015).

Jim Martinez, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies

Jaime E. Martinez is an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the New York Institute of Technology. His active research interests include interdisciplinary STEAM education, service-learning pedagogy, collaboration, and Vygotskian cultural performatory approaches to human development and learning. Martinez graduated from the City University of New York Graduate Center with a Ph.D. in Urban Education in 2009. He is a permanently certified New York City public school teacher and a New York City Teaching Fellow.

Before teaching, Martinez was a managing director in an internet security start-up and a corporate information technology manager for 16 years. He has served on the board of directors of the All Stars Project, a national non-profit youth development program, where he has been a volunteer and financial contributor for over 20 years. Martinez is also an associate at the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, “an international education, training, and research center for developing and promoting alternative and radically humanistic approaches in psychology, therapy, education, and community building.”