PR: 2022 CONNECTICUT ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIPS ANNOUNCED

For Immediate Release                                                                

(NEW HAVEN, CT) The Connecticut Architecture Foundation grants scholarships to students pursuing degrees in an Architectural Program at a Connecticut accredited university or are Connecticut residents pursuing a degree at other accredited universities.

Since 1986, the Foundation has awarded over $550,000 in scholarships. This year eight deserving students will each receive a $5,000 scholarship from one of three Scholarship Funds – The Charles DuBose Memorial Scholarship, The Suzanne Sheng Memorial Scholarship, or the Connecticut Architecture Foundation Scholarship.  Also this year an additional $1,000 scholarship from the newly established Allan Dehar Memorial Scholarship was awarded for the first time to a student presently enrolled in an architectural program at a Connecticut community college.

“The Connecticut Architecture Foundation Board of Directors proudly continues to offer financial support to college students working toward undergraduate and master of architecture degrees. In addition, the Foundation now offers financial support toward certificates and associate degrees from community colleges.” said Stephanie Degen-Monroe, President of the Connecticut Architecture Foundation.

The 2022 recipients of the Charles DuBose Memorial Scholarship:

Sabrah T. Islam, New Haven, CT is a first-generation British-Bangladeshi incoming M.Arch I student at the Yale School of Architecture for Fall 2022. She graduated from the Bachelor of Architecture programme at the University of Westminster in London. Since graduating three years ago, Sabrah has gained experience as an architectural assistant at Foster and Partners, Carmody Groarke, and her current position at David Chipperfield Architects. During this time, she has worked on a plethora of projects from domestic to urban scale, cultural and civic as well as pursuing social equity in the built environment through partaking in architectural empowerment programmes in London. In her summers, she has led workshops at Hellowood, an annual timber build festival in rural Hungary. Sabrah’s architectural interests encompass the preservation of diaspora cultural heritage in post-colonial landscapes. She hopes to pursue multidisciplinary learning at Yale that sits at the intersection of fine art, sound design, and graphics communication.

Louis Koushouris, Greenwich, CT is pursuing a Master of Architecture degree from Yale School of Architecture. He received a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Previously he worked at Joeb Moore & Partners in his hometown of Greenwich, CT where he both managed and was part of team projects designing single-family residential projects from conception through construction. He currently works at Gray Organschi Architecture designing and building single-family, mixed-use, and public projects. In the Spring 2020 semester, Louis was a part of the Regenerative Building seminar where he researched principles of the circular economy, design for disassembly, material and energy flows, and biological / technical metabolisms. These concepts were then applied in practice to the Yale Building Lab design & construction program during Summer 2020 for the Yale Peabody Museum Coastal Research Station on Horse Island, one of the Thimble Islands in Branford Connecticut.

The 2022 recipient of The Suzanne Sheng Memorial Scholarship:

Rex Miller, Lebanon, NH graduated from Connecticut College in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies and a minor in Environmental Studies, where he was awarded the Architectural Studies Prize for achievement in the discipline. He is a contributing author of the book Urban Renewal and Highway Construction in New London, 1941-1975, in which his research on wetlands destruction in Connecticut negotiates boundaries between built and natural environments. Rex is a rising second-year M.Arch I student at Cornell University, where he continues to blur structures and landscapes in his research and studio work. He is currently working his second summer at Banwell Architects in Lebanon, NH.

The 2022 recipients of the Connecticut Architecture Foundation Scholarship:

 Sokaina Asar, Newington, CT will begin her final year in the Master of Architecture program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Her educational background includes a mixture of neuroscience, research, fine arts, and healthcare. She graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience, with courses that were on a Pre-Med track, as well as a minor in Studio Art. After working in orthopedics at UConn Health for a year, she decided to transition to architecture, where the approach to all her backgrounds could intersect in a practical and theoretical way. Currently, she is completing a summer research fellowship with Gensler that focuses on the future of the healthcare practice area. She has also received a fellowship through the American Pakistan Foundation in 2020 as well as the Pratt Taconic Fellowship (with a team of Pratt architecture students) this past year. She hopes to utilize these experiences and backgrounds in order to speculate about architecture through a lens that emphasizes the intersections between neuroscience, perception, and cognition to enhance the human experience within the built environment.

Alexandra Gottlin, Stamford, CT is pursuing her Master of Architecture degree at the University of Oregon (2023). Before moving to Oregon for graduate school, she worked in New York City as a project manager in the architecture and construction fields. She holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from Johns Hopkins University (2017). She enjoys the intersection between math and art in architecture, and aims to create spaces that enhance and uplift the human condition. Her studio project, The Steam Hotel, received the IIDA Student Honorable Mention Award for Hospitality Design. She is continuously inspired by the cutting-edge principles from her experiences on both the East and West Coasts and plans to combine these in her architecture work.

Yumemaru Kashino, New Haven, CT is currently a student at the Yale School of Architecture, pursuing a Master of Architecture degree in the MArch I program. Yume is entering the second year of a three-year program. Before coming to the United States to study, Yume has taken on volunteering, interning, and full-time roles in various LGBTQ+ rights organizations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & Dili, Timor-Leste, particularly focusing on community outreach, activism, and HIV/AIDS advocacy.

Daniel Miele, Melville, NY is a graduate student enrolled in the five-year M.Arch program at the University of Hartford. After graduating Magna Cum Laude with his Bachelors of Science degree, Dan continued pursuing his professional degree in architecture studying in Florence, Italy. As member in varied student organizations, including the University’s Gamma Nu chapter of Tau Sigma Delta Architecture National Honor Society, an active member of the AIAS, and the National Society of Leadership and Success, Dan had begun to explore his long-term aspiration to become a licensed architect. As a LEED Green Associate, Dan eventually plans to work locally, as he explores sustainable urban design within the historic city.

Ryan Reyes, New Haven, CT graduated Summa Cum Laude at Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture. Currently pursuing a Master of Architecture Degree and will graduate in 2023 from Yale University. Where, a previous design project has been featured in Retrospecta 44 and most recently was given the opportunity to study in Rome, Italy. I only wish to contribute meaningfully to the discipline and craft of architecture and offer healthy, accessible, and lasting architecture for the ecology of us and our planet.

Christina Chi Zhang, New Haven, CT is pursuing the Master of Architecture degree at Yale School of Architecture and graduating in 2023. She has dedicated the previous year to research about post-atrocity reconstruction in Bosnia and Rwanda with funding from the George Nelson Travel Scholarship to understand recovery and memory making in war torn cities. Recently, she and fellow Yale architecture students, Claire Hicks and Joshua Tan, won first prize in the Home for the Blind design competition. She is currently doing an internship at EFFEKT in Copenhagen, Denmark and learning about community-based and sustainable design. Her goal is to be a compassionate architect who cares about and designs for people.

The 2022 recipient of The Allan Dehar Memorial Scholarship:

Natalie Morales, Stamford, CT is a first-generation undergraduate student and is enrolled at Norwalk Community College, where she will be pursuing an A.S. in Architectural Engineering Technology. A recent graduate of J.M. Wright Tech high school, she plans to go on to a four-year university to obtain her Bachelor’s in Architecture. Natalie wants to be able to bring a smile to all types of people with her projects filled with creativity. A career goal she desires to accomplish is organizing a free architecture program for future architecture students. Natalie wishes to make buildings that can resist natural disasters so people all around the world can be safe. Very close with her extended family, Natalie has spent summers with her grandmother in Ecuador, volunteering at the local cemetery, cleaning various tombstones with permission. She desires to show people the fun in helping others.