Suzy (Zekun) Li

Suzy Li is a Ph.D. candidate in Building Performance & Diagnostics at Carnegie Mellon Architecture. She is currently teaching “Urban Design Media: Emerging Media,” co-instructing the course “Environmental Systems: Climate & Energy in Buildings,” and is a TA for the course “Productivity, Health, and the Sustainable Quality of the Built Environment.” She received the CMU Graduate Student Teaching Award in 2024.

Smart Surfaces is a critical component of her thesis topic on climate-resilient policymaking and guidelines for human comfort design in urban public spaces. She developed a five-minute introductory video on Smart Surfaces for the Smart Surfaces Coalition and published the Smart Surface Guidebook. She was the second-place winner of the 3-Minute Thesis Competition at CMU in 2022. 

She received her Bachelor in Urban Planning at Beijing University of Technology. She earned a Master of Urban Design (MUD) in 2013 and a Master Science of Architecture in 2014 from Carnegie Mellon.

Research Interests

• Smart Surfaces is a critical component of Suzy's thesis topic on climate-resilient policymaking and guidelines for human comfort design in urban public spaces. She has led her team of research assistants and published the Smart Surfaces Guidebook.