George Stiny, a theorist of design and computation, joined the Department of Architecture in 1996 after fifteen years on the faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles. Educated at MIT and at UCLA, where he received a PhD in Engineering, Stiny has also taught at the University of Sydney, the Royal College of Art (London), and the Open University.
Stiny's particular contribution to the field has been in the invention and refinement of the idea of shape grammars, and his work stands as a critique of the vast majority of existing computer-aided design systems. He is currently working on a book on shape to be published by the Cambridge University Press and is the author of Pictorial and Formal Aspects of Shape and Shape Grammars, and of Algorithmic Aesthetics: Computer Models for Criticism and Design in the Arts with J. Gips. Prof. Stiny is a member of the Editorial Boards of Planning and Design: Environment and Planning B and Languages of Design.