The College of Architecture and Design strives to reinforce faculty in establishing and maintaining a record of strong research, scholarship, creative achievement and engaged scholarship. This spring, Dean Jason Young recognized four faculty members with one of the three college research awards during the College of Architecture and Design’s State of the College address.

The James Johnson Dudley Architecture Faculty Scholar is a biennial award to support the research development of tenured or tenure-track faculty. Established in 2011 by Libba Wall in honor of her son and alumnus of the program, the award celebrates the faculty who believed in Dudley when he was a student.

This year’s Dudley Scholar is Andrew Madl, assistant professor of landscape architecture, who will be pursuing critical and speculative research called Wild Data, “an examination of a speculative technology that has the ability to radically shift our perception of how we can coexist with landscapes that are entangled with our technological needs.”

Told from the perspective of a US government organization, Madl will write a book and develop an animated short film, which tells the fictional story following the transition of digital data from traditional centers to Wild Data Centers.

The Alma and Hal Reagan Research Seed Award was established to help kickstart shorter-term, high impact research projects or the beginning stages of potentially longer-term projects. These projects target categories that address the college’s strengths and strategic priorities.

This year’s award was presented to Kimberly Mitchell, assistant professor of graphic design, for her developing research on age-inclusive design. With support from the award, Mitchell plans to develop an interactive tool that simulates age-related changes in order to foster empathy and creativity among designers. Mitchell will then disseminate her findings through a variety of methods to achieve a broader goal of promoting design that supports aging with dignity, joy, and accessibility.

The James Musgraves Research Award supports faculty with research projects in later development stages that would benefit from additional funding to complete them.

This year’s awards supported Assistant Professors of Interior Architecture Felicia Francine Dean and Hojung Kim.

With support from the award, Dean will exhibit Embodied Material Narratives, a body of work investigating the human experience of identity verse identification. The proposed exhibition includes finished work from three projects featuring vessels, textiles, sculptural furniture seating and objects.

Since 2022, Kim has engaged a multidisciplinary project addressing the cultural, socio-economic, and environmental challenges faced by Vietnam’s marginalized brick artisans in response to new government regulations. With support from the award, he will pursue formal documentation, architectural drawings, and records intended to create a replicable framework for revitalizing the rural industries.

These faculty awards exemplify the College of Architecture and Design’s deep commitment to advancing innovative, relevant, and impactful research.