Gal Ringel
Architect Gal Ringel, PhD, is a Lecturer at the innovation accelerator MIT DESIGNX, focusing on the design and development of new ventures created at MIT.
As a senior architect and researcher, she has worked in industry and academia around the world on pioneering architectural projects focusing on sustainability and design innovation.
Dr Ringel has completed her postdoctoral research at the MIT Department of Architecture, where she was the project architect of the ARPA-e 'CarbonHouse' research initiative, looking to design, theorize, analyze, and prototype composite buildings.
She earned her Master's and Ph.D. from the Climate and Energy Laboratory in Architecture (CeLA) at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where she researched complex building morphologies and energy performance in the commercial sector.
Before joining MIT, Dr Ringel was a senior, team-leading architect at award-winning international firms for 12 years. She designed high-end mixed-use projects, office buildings, public buildings, housing projects, cultural and academic centers, hotels, and theatres.
She is also a Faculty Fellow at the MIT Office of Sustainability and a member of the Women Advisory Group at MIT.
Being a professional skipper, she had lived and traveled on a sailing boat worldwide.
Through material-processing exploration, prototyping, testing of building elements for fire, structure, acoustics, and thermal performance, and fabricating pilot building envelopes, the project looks to use hydrocarbon-derived composites to create minimal-footprint habitation.