Upali Nanda

Upali Nanda, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Global Sector Director for Innovation at HKS, an international architectural firm, where she oversees a range of innovation practices that work within, through and beyond the built environment for meaningful impact. Prior to her current role, she served as Global Research Director for the firm and as the Executive Director for the non-profit Center for Advanced Design Research and Education. Dr. Nanda also teaches as Associate Professor of Practice at the Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning at University of Michigan and sits on the board of the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture.

Dr. Nanda’s doctoral work has been published as a book, "Sensthetics," and she is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and quoted in the media. Her research has been awarded the AIA Upjohn Grant, the European Healthcare Design Research Award, and the Journal of Interior Design Scholarship Excellence award. She has been recognized as one of the top 10 most influential people in Healthcare Design by Healthcare Design Magazine and in 2018, received Architectural Record’s Women in Architecture Innovator Award. In 2021, she was featured in the book “100 Women Who Changed Architecture” for her research on designing spaces that promote healthy behaviors.

Dr. Nanda received her Bachelor of Architecture from India’s School of Architecture and Design, her Master of Architecture from the National University of Singapore, and her PhD from Texas A&M University.