Omar Khan is a professor and the head of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Khan joined CMU from the Department of Architecture at the University at Buffalo (UB), where he served as department chair for seven years. During his tenure as chair, the department’s reputation grew in response to his pedagogical innovations, especially in design-build experiential learning and research-focused graduate education. His efforts also led to the largest increase of sponsored research at the department.

Khan’s research and creative activities span architecture, installation/performance art, and digital design and fabrication. At UB, he co-directed the Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies (CAST) and was an editor of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series. CAST’s research focuses on pervasive computing technologies as they intersect with architecture. He also was a co-director of the Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotics Technology (SMART) Community of Excellence. Through SMART, he worked with Boston Valley Terra Cotta, the largest architectural terra cotta manufacturer in North America, on developing digital workflows in the manufacturing process. Since 2017, he has organized the annual Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop (ACAW) that invites architects and artists to explore future architectural application for terracotta. He is also the co-principal, with Laura Garófalo, of Liminal Projects, an architectural research office, and partner with Jordan Geiger in Gekh, a design consultancy.