(USA) – The second largest annual number of grants and awards in its 32-year history has been distributed by the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education for 2021.

Nine recipients have been granted a total of $160,000, ranging from $30,000 to $5,000. The annual award ceremony, which would have taken place at LEDucation, was not held due to Covid restrictions, meaning that recipients were instead informed by mail. This year’s grants and awards brings the Fund’s total distribution to $1.6million since its formation.

Established in 1988, the Nuckolls Fund supports college-level lighting programmes that enable students to learn, appreciate and apply the fundamentals of lighting design, and to recognise the achievements of the late lighting designer and pioneering lighting educator, James L. Nuckolls. Submittals for financial support from the Fund’s programmes are evaluated annually by its Board of Directors.

Nuckolls Fund President Lee Waldron, and President of Grenald Waldron Associates, in announcing this year’s award and grant recipients, recognised the generosity of the lighting community that makes it possible for the Fund to continue its financial support for the advancement of lighting education: “It has allowed a great number of schools to improve the ways they deal with new lighting technology, and the unique lighting requirements that contribute to the wellbeing for users of interior spaces.

“The diversity of this year’s five Nuckolls Fund grants is evidence of the breadth of contemporary lighting knowledge development.”

Waldron and the Fund’s Board of Directors also welcomed the initial participation by a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) for the winning $30,000 Nuckolls Fund grant to Morgan State University to pursue the topic “Light in the Built Environment”.

“Morgan State University’s Graduate Architecture Program will be the first HBCU to develop a graduate level transdisciplinary lighting class. The proposers pointed out that while the 106 HBCUs make up 3% of America’s colleges and universities, they are responsible for 25% of all African American graduates in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This Nuckolls Fund award is an important and needed knowledge resource within the lighting industry,” Waldron added.

Funded Proposals

$30,000 Nuckolls Fund Grants

• Greg Guarnaccia and Edward Bartholomew will work with the graduate programme director, Dr. Mohammad Gharipour, to develop “Light in the Built Environment,” for the Department of Graduate Built Environment Studies at Morgan State’s School of Architecture and Planning.
• Linda Pollari, RA, Chair, Department of Architecture/Landscape/Interiors, Otis College of Art and Design, to develop “Online Modules for Existing Lighting Design Certificate Courses.”
• Dorukalp Durmus, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University, for “Color Science Course for Architecture, Design and Engineering.”
• Lyn Godley, Associate Professor of Industrial Design, Kanbar College of Design, Engineering & Commerce, Thomas Jefferson University in conjunction with Jefferson Light Research, will establish the program, “Development of an Interdisciplinary Light and Health Curriculum.”

$20,000 Nuckolls Fund Grant

• Abimbola O. Asojo, Ph.D, Professor of Interior Design, College of Design, University of Minnesota, and Mary Guzowski, MA, Professor, School of Architecture, University of Minnesota, to create the program, “Expansion of the Lighting Design Minor.”

$5,000 Student Achievement Awards:

Jonas Bellovin Scholar Achievement Award: Samantha Komber, Pennsylvania State University

Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award: Xiang Sun, Parsons School of Design

2021 Designers Lighting Forum of New York Student Achievement Awards: to Jackson Brogan, University of Colorado at Boulder State University; and to Akila Udage, RPI Lighting Research Center

Announcements of the 2022 Request for Proposals will be made on 20 September, while the deadline for receipt of applications for grants and awards for the 2022 Nuckolls Fund is 1 October. Distribution to winners will take place on 15-16 March 2022 at LEDucation.

www.nuckollsfund.org