Ana Ozaki

Education

Bachelor of Architecture, Parana's Federal University; Bachelor of Fine Art, School of Music and Fine Arts; Master of Science in Architecture and Master in City Planning, University of Cincinnati, Ph.D. in History of Architecture and Urban Development, Cornell University

Biography

Ana Ozaki's research investigates the complex ways racial ideologies have interfered with architectural understandings of climate and the environment within the African diaspora, mainly within the Black Atlantic. Centered on Brazil's construction of an architectural ideal for the rest of the tropics, her dissertation, "The Brazilian Atlantic: New 'Brazils,' Plantation Architecture, Race, and Climate in Brazil and Africa, 1910-1974," examined the country's connections to West and Southern Africa, specifically Nigeria, Angola, and Mozambique, albeit often mediated by Europe. Through Black feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial theories, her research elucidates how the history of modernism and modernist architecture in the tropics has been entangled with racial capitalism. She argues that such narratives are central to local and localized Black experiences and negotiations brought into relation by colonialism and cannot be understood without cross-cultural and South-to-South exchanges between tropicalized sites, subjects, and practices.

She received her Ph.D. in History of Architecture and Urban Development from Cornell University in 2022, specializing in Latin American and Africana Studies and working closely with Esra Akcan, Raymond Craib, and Salah Hassan. Before her doctorate, Ozaki participated in the Ignis Mutat Res research project, funded by the French government, in local urban design projects, exhibitions, and public education programs in collaboration with the Niehoff Urban Studio, at the University of Cincinnati, and the Over-the-Rhine foundation in Cincinnati. Working as a licensed architect in Brazil, Ozaki was also involved in institutional and residential-scaled projects in Brazil and Angola. Ozaki holds a Ph.D. in History of Architecture and Urban Development from Cornell University, a B.Arch. and a BFA from Parana's Federal University and the School of Music and Fine Arts, respectively, and an MSc Arch and an MCP from the University of Cincinnati, where she also taught various undergraduate courses.

Ozaki's research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities, Cornell's Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Social Science Research Council's Dissertation Proposal Development Program, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the German Academic Exchange Service's (DAAD). Ozaki is invested in the public discussion and anti-racist pedagogies in architectural history and has taught courses across the US at Princeton University, Barnard College & Columbia University, UCLA, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cornell University, University of Cincinnati, and the Universidade Positivo in Brazil.