About

I work at the interface of structural engineering, architecture, and computer science, developing intelligent computational tools that help engineers design low-carbon structures and assess and preserve existing ones.

I am currently the Design++ Postdoctoral Fellow at ETH Zürich, appointed across the Departments of Computer Science and Architecture working at the Block Research Group and the Interactive Visualization & Intelligence Augmentation Lab. My research focuses on improving human–AI collaboration for structural design and assessment. I am also the co-lead of the EU Horizon CARBCOMN project on carbon-negative, compression-dominant structures. In 2025, I founded Maia Avelino Structural Design (MASD), a structural and computational design consultancy.

Previously, I was a structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) working in the New York and San Francisco offices. At SOM, I designed a wide range of projects including high-rises, long-span roofs, gridshells, cable nets, and footbridges, and developed Python-based tools and AI agents for engineering.

I completed my PhD at ETH Zürich in 2023 being awarded the ETH Medal — for outstanding work. My PhD developed new geometry-based computational methods to assess unreinforced masonry structures which were later demonstrated through an extended-reality (XR) interface at the 13th-century Lausanne Cathedral. Before starting my PhD, I graduated with a M.Sc. (Hons.) in Structural Engineering from École des Ponts et Chaussées and a Bachelor in Civil Engineering from the University of São Paulo.

In my free time I like to cycle around the Zurich lake and love puzzle solving.

Get in touch if you’d like to collaborate.