Biography
Robert K. Otani, PE LEED AP is a Principal at Thornton-Tomasetti, Inc., a 1200 person multidisciplinary consulting firm, and founded the CORE studio, an applications development, advanced computational modeling, and R&D group at his firm. Robert serves as the Advisory Committee for Thornton Tomasetti’s firm-wide Research and Development program. He has extensive structural design experience involving commercial, infrastructure, institutional, cultural and residential structures. Over his 20-year career, he has worked on a wide variety of complex projects, including high-rise buildings, long-span roof structures, sports arenas, airport terminals, major building structural renovations and retrofits, complex art projects totaling over $2 billion USD of construction. His professional and academic interests focus on informed architecture relating to optimized structural typologies, high performance structures, and structural sustainability. He has served as President of the Structural Engineers Association of New York in 2007 and has been a professor at Pratt Institute School of Architecture from 2008 to present and Columbia GSAPP from 2009-2015.