In interior design, material choices are never just material choices — they affect how spaces perform, how people experience them, and how buildings respond to changing environmental, health, and safety demands. That connection is central to the work of Lisa Sundahl Platt, Ph.D., IIDA’s 2026 Educator of the Year.

Who She Is

An Assistant Professor of Interior Design and Research Faculty with the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER) at the University of Florida, Platt teaches students to approach materials not as finishing touches, but as evidence-based design decisions with long-term consequences. “Interior design education, at its best, prepares students to safeguard human health, safety, and ecological well-being through every design decision they make,” she says, adding: “My goal has been to translate that ethical obligation into teaching practices that build students’ confidence and competence, particularly in building materials and interior finishes, where technical decisions have long-term impacts.”

Platt’s teaching portfolio runs the design gamut, from classes on materials and finishes, sustainable interiors and data-driven design methods to healthcare studios and courses on resilient design. She helps students engage with systems thinking, interpret product data, and harness evidence-based design to refine their decision-making process.

The Work

At the center of Platt’s teaching is the Sustainable Adaptive Material Performance Level framework and practicum lab, known as SAMPL. Developed to address the gap between students’ desire to design responsibly and their ability to evaluate material performance in complex real-world scenarios, SAMPL provides what Platt describes as “an AI-driven, computationally supported, resilience-driven decision model.” Using the SAMPL dashboard, students can assess materials based on performance, environmental responsiveness, and end-of-life pathways.

In practice, that means students learn to ask sharper questions: How will a material perform under stress? How does it support occupant health? What are its environmental impacts? What happens at the end of its life? And how can designers use that information to make better, more responsible decisions?

A recent study of the SAMPL curriculum showed statistically significant improvements in students’ material resilience knowledge, and students reported an increase in their ability to remember, explain, apply, and evaluate resilience concepts.

The Impact

Colleagues describe SAMPL as both a teaching tool and a model for the field. Nam-Kyu Park, Ph.D., FIDEC, incoming department chair at the University of Florida’s Department of Interior Design, says that within the Interior Materials course, SAMPL “functions as a structured, research-grounded platform that moves students beyond rote memorization of products to an integrated understanding of material performance under the real context of use stressors and climate-related risks.” That shift, Park adds, has implications beyond one class. “This kind of cross-course integration is precisely what our discipline needs to respond credibly to climate change, health challenges, circularity, and rapidly evolving performance expectations in the built environment.”

Roberto Rengel, chair of the Department of Interior Design, also points to Platt’s ability to connect research, teaching, and real-world learning. “Dr. Platt brings to the classroom a blend of substantial practice experience, an accomplished teaching record, and an impressive body of research related to high performing interior materials and finishes,” he says. The creation of SAMPL, he adds, has been “a game-changer for our undergraduate and graduate students, enabling advanced learning opportunities that were simply out-of-reach before.”

Students describe that impact in personal and practical terms. “Dr. Platt introduced me to the Sustainable Adaptive Material Performance Level (SAMPL) model and treated students as emerging researchers,” says Emma Hitchcock. She learned to evaluate finishes and materials “based on their safety, environmental responsiveness, and sustainability performance factors,” then translate those insights into “responsible, resilience-focused material design specifications.”

For Hitchcock, the lesson extended beyond the classroom. “Seeing the same methods from her courses applied at the policy scale showed me that interior design decisions can directly influence resilience, regulation, and affordability,” she says. “She is a key reason I understand interior design as a discipline where designers must engage in rigorous analysis, integrating climate resilience and care for communities.”

Why It Matters

Platt’s work offers a practical model for where interior design education can go next. It gives students a way to connect material knowledge to health, safety, climate resilience, sustainability, and community care — while preparing them to speak with confidence in internships, employment interviews, research settings, and professional practice. It also reframes material selection as one of the most consequential decisions designers make. Not just what a space looks like, but how it performs. Not just what products are specified, but what values those specifications carry. “Each course, assignment, and mentoring conversation is an opportunity to equip future designers with the insight and skills they need to lead in design resilience,” Platt says. That’s teaching as preparation for practice — and for what practice can become.