Mahtab Khabir, who spent two summers as an intern and will be joining the firm as a full-time designer this year, won Penn State’s Jawaid Haider Award for Design Excellence in Graduate Studies for her thesis “Urban Resonance.”
Her winning thesis reimagines architecture through sound, movement, and human perception, rather than form and function alone. The project proposes a center for art, sounds, and sensory experience in Harlem, New York, translating musical principles into spatial and acoustic strategies and drawing from the neighborhood’s legacy of jazz, street performance, and public gathering.
Mahtab interned at KPF in 2024 and 2025, an experience she credits as central to her design thinking. She will join the firm full-time this summer.
“Working on large-scale urban developments helped me understand cities not as isolated buildings, but as living systems shaped by movement, infrastructure, public life, and human interaction,” she said. “That experience [at KPF] strengthened my interest in urban design and public space as areas where architecture has its greatest social impact.”
Each summer, KPF welcomes a cohort of interns through a program that fosters professional growth through mentorship, connecting young architects with senior staff across the firm.
The Haider Award, now in its seventh year, recognizes graduate students for excellence in design based on their culminating thesis.
