Nuckolls Fund distributes $140,000 in Grants and Awards for 2023
(USA) – Four grants of $30,000 each and four awards of $5,000 have been distributed by the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education for 2023, totalling $140,000. This year’s grants and awards brought the Fund’s total distribution to more than $1.85million.
Founded in 1988 to recognise the achievements of the late lighting designer and educator James L. Nuckolls, the Nuckolls Fund supports the development of innovative college-level lighting programmes for the technology and aesthetics of lighting design with grants, and assists deserving students with awards to further their lighting design education. Submittals by educators for grants and nominations for student recognition are judged annually by the Fund’s Board of Directors.
Nuckolls Fund President Lee Waldron, in announcing this year’s award and grant recipients, recognised the breadth of the proposals for lighting-related instruction, from incorporating Building Information Modelling across inter-department programmes to techniques for integrating daylighting into interior spaces. “Each grant principal investigator emphasised the importance of their revised curricula to the students who would be taking the knowledge gained with them into the lighting industry, which will ultimately benefit the end-user,” he said.
Recipients of the $30,000 Nuckolls Grants to Expand Lighting Curriculum were Texas Christian University, and Oregon State University. At Texas Christian University, Alyssa Humphries Steward, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Lighting Education was recognised for the programme “Integration of CAD to BIM: the Design Process and Technology Paradigm Shift in Architectural Lighting Design Education & Practice”, which will extend throughout the existing lighting curricula.
At Oregon State University, Clotilde Pierson, Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering received a grant to improve learning modules with its “Daylighting Design through Experiential Learning Pedagogy”.
The $30,000 Lesley Wheel Grants to Develop and Deliver New Courses were awarded to Lauren Dandridge, Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Architecture at the University of Southern California, who received a grant for “Exploring Exterior Lighting Design and its Effect on Health, Community, and Nature”. Robert Davis, Affiliate Faculty, Civil, and Architectural Engineering Department at Tennessee State University was also recognised with a grant for “Expanding Lighting Education: A step towards a more diverse academic pipeline into the lighting professions”.
The Nuckolls Fund also distributed four $5,000 Awards to students across the United States. The Jonas Bellovin Scholar Achievement Award when to S M Ashik Rahman, University of Colorado; The Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award was given to Nayoun Ryu, Parsons School of Design; and Bentley Tonniges, University of Nebraska, and Aaron Zimmerman, Pennsylvania State Univeristy, were both recognised with the Designers Lighting Forum of New York Student Achievement Award.
