Adjunct Faculty
Jenny Perlin is an artist working in Brooklyn. Her practice in 16mm film, video and drawing works with and against the documentary tradition, incorporating innovative stylistic techniques to emphasize issues of truth, misunderstanding, and personal history. Her projects look closely at ways in which social machinations are reflected in the smallest fragments of daily life. In her films, Perlin often combines handwritten text and drawn images, embracing the technical quirks of analog technologies.
Jenny Perlin (b. 1970, Massachusetts) currently lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her BA from Brown University in Literature and Society, her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Film, and postgraduate studies at the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. Her works have been shown in numerous exhibitions including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; MoMA, New York; New York; the Drawing Center, New York; The Kitchen, New York; Mass MoCA, Massachusetts; Guangzhou Triennial, Canton: IFC Center, New York, New York Film Festival, Berlin and Rotterdam film festivals; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, among others.
Perlin is represented by Simon Preston Gallery New York and Galerie M+R Fricke in Berlin. She teaches at The Cooper Union and The New School in New York.

Nima Javidi is a registered architect in Toronto and the 2021 Gwathmey Professor in Architecture at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, where he teaches and coordinates core design studios. Nima’s interest in design is the intersection of geometry, structure, and typology in architecture.
Nima is a founding principal at JA Architecture Studio, a Toronto-based practice that combines the rootedness of a local architecture firm with the broad interests of an international design studio. The firm’s work has been recognized and awarded in a range of international competitions from the Guggenheim Helsinki Museum, Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, and a Progressive Architecture Award, to three Awards of Excellence from Canadian Architect and two finalist designations for the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Nima’s built work as part of JA operates at the threshold of architecture and urbanism, where the geometric reconfiguration of building typology is triggered by the conditions of urban morphology. The firm has introduced a series of architectural interventions of different uses along the urban voids within the West Queen West neighborhood in Toronto.
Javidi has a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Tehran and a Master of Urban Design from the University of Toronto. Prior to joining The Cooper Union Nima taught architecture design studios at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.
In 2020, JA's work was featured in One to One | 1:1, an exhibition in The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture's Third Floor Hallway Gallery. Images of the exhibition are available here.
Tommy Schaperkotter is an architect, builder, and educator devoted to transdisciplinary exploration of material cultures, construction ecologies, and interdependencies between built and non-built environments. He works at the confluence of climate urgency, labor equity, and design-build processes. His projects include housing in the United States, rural reforestation in Haiti, earthen construction in Austria, and architectural advocacy for displaced communities in Bangladesh.
Schaperkotter received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia and holds a Master in Architecture with Distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he was a co-recipient of the Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize and the AIA / ACSA Committee on the Environment Top Ten Students Award. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at Cooper Union and he also teaches at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.
Tommy's CV can be viewed here.
