Ray Pentecost

Ray Pentecost is one of the nation’s foremost advocates and practitioners of healthcare facility evidence-based design. His areas of interest of include population health, research in architectural practice and health planning policy. He is director of the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M, which is home to the world's largest group of interdisciplinary faculty, students and affiliated professionals committed to healthcare facility environment research and education. The center examines how the built and natural environments affect patients, influence healing, pain relief, quality health care, physical activity, social interaction, work flow and other behaviors. He also is the Ronald L. Skaggs and Joseph G. Sprague Chair of Health Facilities Design, and professor of practice in the School of Architecture. Design magazine named Pentecost to its 2012 list of the most influential people in the field. Pentecost was a key contributor to numerous award-winning healthcare facility projects in Virginia, including the Hancock Geriatric Treatment Center, the Sitter & Barfoot Veterans Care Center and the Sentara Center for Health and Fitness. Pentecost has also advanced healthcare facility design in leadership roles in several advocacy groups, serving as chairman of an AIA and National Institute of Building Science initiative to create a public, Internet-based repository for peer-reviewed research and case studies of the built environment from pre-design through occupancy and reuse. As the 2009-10 board president of the AIA’s Academy of Architecture for Health, Pentecost led a drive to add healthy community design to the group’s mission statement. He earned Bachelor of Arts  and Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University, and Master of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health.