Lecture 91: Evidence Based Design: An Interdisciplinary Design Approach to Improve Health and Well-Being

When: Thursday February 11, 2016 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

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Speaker: Hessam Ghamari, Ph.D.
Language: Farsi






Synopsis:

Evidence-Based Design (EBD) is the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes. EBD has become popular in the field of healthcare design to improve healing process through increasing safety, fostering patient and staff well being, and reducing length of stay and stress. EBD is an approach used by interior designers, architects, facility managers, and healthcare administrators in the planning, design, and construction of commercial buildings. After three decades of research, there is enough evidence that different health outcomes are directly or indirectly related to some design decisions. Although extensive studies have been devoted to EBD, less attention has been paid to identifying the relationships between specific design interventions and their implications for healthcare outcomes. This talk consists of the EBD introduction and three empirical research projects that relate to the design interventions and their implications. The first project studies the neural responses of human brain when exposed to photographic sky compositions. The second study explores neural activation in adult brains in response to visual stimulus containing formal environmental attributes, and the last study examines eye-fixations during navigation in unfamiliar environments to identify visual environmental elements and attributes of wayfinding.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Hessam Ghamari is an assistant professor in Interior Design program at Appalachian State University. Dr. Ghamari received his PhD in Environmental Interior Design from Texas Tech University (TTU), and has over 10 years’ experience in research, practice, and teaching in interior design and architecture in the United States and Iran. He also earned his M.Sc. degree in interior design from Texas Tech University and M.Arch degree from Iran Science and Technology University (IUST). His research efforts have been recognized by several awards throughout his academic career including “Best Student of The Year” in the college of Human Sciences at TTU, “Winner of Covenant Health and Social Services Fellowship”, “EDRAIT of the month (June 2015) by Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA)”, and “Best Researcher” in the school of Architecture and Environment Design at IUST. His primary research interests lie with evidence based healthcare design, wayfinding in unfamiliar environments, sustainable architecture, neuroscience and architecture, and cultural approaches in design. Dr. Ghamari has also been involved in funded research projects in various areas of neuroscience and architecture and environmental design. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences on environment psychology, evidence based design, and healthcare design.

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

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2015 Student Scholarship Award Ceremony

IAAP is proud to host:

2015 Student Scholarship Award Ceremony

When: Thursday Jan. 14 2016, 7:00 -10:45 PM
Where: Matt’s House of Kabob (15108 Frederick Rd #A Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: (301) 444-4744 )

RSVP Required : Fee (including dinner) $20

Program Agenda:

7:00 Registration

7:30 Opening Remarks by Dr. Aram Hessami, Vice President for Planning

7:35 Buffet Dinner

8:35 About IAAP, by Aram Hessami

8:50 Persian Music performance (Gorouheh Kargaaheh Honar)

9:15 Scholarship Award Selection Criteria and 2015 applications and awards, Manouchehr Farkhondeh, President, IAAP

9:40 Award Ceremony and Short Presentation by select recipients of 2015 Scholarship Awards

10:30 Gorouheh Kargaaheh Honar and Closing Remarks

Lecture 90: Neutrinos: Perfect Candidate to Study High-Energy Universe

When: Thursday December 10, 2015 – 7:30 PM
Where: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 (Get Directions, Campus Map )

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Speaker: Azadeh Keivani, Ph.D.
Language: Farsi






Synopsis:

Neutrinos: the subject of 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The universe is made up of atoms, but atoms, despite their Greek name, are not elementary particles. They are composed of electrons surrounding a nucleus constructed of protons and neutrons. Electrons along with a few other particles are known to be elementary particles forming the ordinary matter. There are other elementary particles that are not constituents of ordinary matter, but they are everywhere around us. One of these interesting elementary particles is called neutrino.
The neutrino particle won its fourth Nobel Prize in physics this year (following the prizes in 2002, 1995, and 1988). But why is neutrino worth it?
Neutrino is unique in that it’s both almost massless and almost noninteracting. Due to these two unique properties, it can travel long distances in the universe without scattering or interacting with matter. Thus their observations are a unique probe of the universe’s highest-energy phenomena. There have been huge deep underground detectors built around the globe to study neutrinos with different energies.
I this talk, I will present the importance of neutrino physics and astronomy by explaining how neutrinos were discovered, how we detect them today, and what information they carry from the nearby universe, from other galaxies, and even from the early universe and the big bang.

About the Speaker:

Azadeh Keivani is a postdoctoral scholar in particle astrophysics at the Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of the Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Network (AMON) project and a member of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, studying high-energy neutrinos and multimessenger particles. She received her PhD in physics from the Louisiana State University working on ultra-high energy cosmic rays at the Pierre Auger Observatory. Before moving to the US in 2008, she received her BS in physics from Sharif University of Technology, where she worked on experimental cosmic ray physics. Azadeh is founder and author of an astrophysical literature website written in Farsi. This website which updates weekly is an introduction to the world of professional astronomy. You can reach it at http://staryab.com.

For this lecture: light refreshment will be provided

Please click here to RSVP.