Jennifer Shields

Areas of Expertise

Profile

Jennifer Shields is an Associate Professor in the Architecture Department at Cal Poly and a Registered Architect in North Carolina. Her research and teaching are interdisciplinary, looking at how we as individuals and communities are impacted by the built environments we inhabit. She studies how we graphically represent built environments through photography, drawing, collage, models, and virtual and augmented realities, to better understand the correlation between experiences of the built environment and its representations. Her current projects include exhibitions for cultural heritage.

Experience

Educational Credentials:

• Master of Architecture, University of Virginia 
• BS in Architecture, University of Virginia

Teaching Experience:

• Cal Poly 2015-present 
• Politecnico di Torino, Spring 2023
• UNC-Charlotte 2008-15

Professional Experience:

• Flux Design, San Luis Obispo 
• Tobin + Dudley, Charlotte, NC 
• Judith Kinnard Architect, Charlottesville, VA 
• LS3P Associates Ltd., Charleston, SC

Licenses/Registration:

• North Carolina, NCARB

Memberships: 

• Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture

Scholarship

Selected Publications and Recent Research:

• Shields, Jennifer A. E. and Anna Osello. 2024. “Cultural Heritage and Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Realities: Accessibility and Inclusion for People with Disabilities.” European Research on Architecture and Urbanism International Conference, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Presented June 20, 2024 in Milan, and Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture Conference, La Jolla, CA. 2023.
• Shields, Jennifer A. E., Anna Osello, and Humberto Manera. “Cultural Heritage and Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Realities: Accessibility and Inclusion for People with Disabilities.” Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture Conference. 2023.
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. Collage and Architecture, Second Edition. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. 2023.
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. “Phenomenology and Architecture: Examining Embodied Experience and Graphic Representations of the Built Environment.” In Horizons of Phenomenology: Essays on the State of the Field and Its Applications, edited by Patrick Londen, Jeffrey Yoshimi, Philip Walsh. New York: Springer. 2023.
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. “Selective Attention and the Built Environment: Visual Perception of 2D Spatial Representations.” In Proceedings of the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) Research Conference: Performative Environments. 2021. 
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. 2020. “Displacement: Architectural Collage.” 4th International Congress on Ambiances: Ambiances, Alloaesthesia. Senses, Inventions, Worlds. 2020

Selected Awards:

• Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities Grant - “Engaging Architecture: Enhancing and Evaluating Multi-Sensory Experience in Sites of Cultural Heritage with Spatial Computing and Emotion-AI” with Dr. Javier Gonzalez-Sanchez, Computer Science (2024)
• Center for Expressive Technologies Seed Grant - “Engaging Architecture: Enhancing and Evaluating Multi-Sensory Experience in Sites of Cultural Heritage” with Dr. Javier Gonzalez-Sanchez, Computer Science (2024)
• BEACoN Research Grant - “Architecture and Neuroscience: Improving and Evaluating Multi-Sensory Experience in Sites of Cultural Heritage” (2024)
• Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design Grant - “Exploring Multi-Sensory Experiences in Virtual and Augmented Space for People with Cognitive Disabilities” (2022) 
• Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design Grant - “Julia Morgan, Architect : An Exhibition” (2021) 
• Cal Poly Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities Grant - “Exhibition - Julia Morgan, Architect: From Student of the Beaux-Arts to Pioneer of Concrete Construction” (2020) 
• BEACoN Research Grant - “Visual Perception of Drawings and Photographs” (2019) 
• Cal Poly Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activities Grant - “How Veridical are Two-Dimensional Representations of Three-Dimensional Architectural Space?” (2016)

Selected Activity: 

• Julia Morgan, Architect: Challenging Conventions - Curated and designed exhibition of the original drawings of pioneering architect Julia Morgan for the University Art Gallery at Cal Poly, 15 January – 11 February 2022. 
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. 2022. “Julia Morgan, Architect: Transforming Practice.” 2022 IAWA Symposium – Breaking Through. The International Archive of Women in Architecture Center. 
• Shields, Jennifer A. E. 2021. “Neurophenomenology and Architecture: Reconciling Perceptions of Two-Dimensional Representations with Embodied Spatial Experience.” 5th International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture (ISPA) Biennial Conference - Public Space: The Real and the Ideal.

Updated 10.08.2024