Faculty in the College of Design, Construction and Planning (DCP) at the University of Florida (UF) are excited to share news of a 3-year, $750,000 grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Gulf Research Program (GRP).
The NASEM GRP grant was awarded to an interdisciplinary team across DCP including Jeff Carney (Associate Professor, Architecture and Director of the FIBER), Andrea Galinski (Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture), Kyle Dost (Instructional Assistant Professor, Urban and Regional Planning and Director, MURP Online Program), Christian Calle (Assistant Scholar, Architecture), and Carla Brisotto (Assistant Scholar, Architecture, and Assistant Director of the FIBER).
Faculty from architecture, landscape architecture, and urban & regional planning introduce the final project to invited guest jurors and community partners for the Spring 2024 “super-studio.”
Through the grant, faculty will build on a two-year pilot of GulfSouth Studio (GSS) program, which supports educational initiatives that help students address the challenges faced by the Florida Gulf Coast related to disaster recovery and community resilience. The program has supported a range of seminar courses, design studios, and an interdisciplinary “super studio” across multiple units in the college and broader university. To date, more than 160 students have already participated in the GSS program and collaborated with community partners to tackle real-world problems through design, planning, research, and visualization.
Students present background research on the greater Ft. Myers area as part of the Spring 2024 “super-studio,” which explored designing more resilient neighborhoods.
The new NASEM grant will also support development of a new “Resilient Urban Design” certificate and eventual post-professional master’s degree. This degree program is anticipated to draw students from fields including architecture, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, public policy, disaster management, and environmental science, which allows for a unique multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving.
“The National Academies has recognized our faculties’ work to create new opportunities for innovation in our academic programs,” said Dr. Ravi Srinivasan, Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives. “These interdisciplinary courses and the super-studios have already been very successful. And this program can help meet the needs of future design and planning professionals, while also supporting our big goal of making UF the nation’s first AI University.”
The UF also aims to becoming the nation’s first AI university and provide every student, regardless of their major, an opportunity to learn about artificial intelligence.
Visualization of future flood risk in Ft. Myers and students’ proposed architectural interventions.
The NASEM GRP selected UF as one of 8 institutions across the U.S. Gulf region including Texas A&M University, Louisiana State University, Auburn, Mississippi State, Tulane, Rice, University of Houston, and Prairie View A&M University. The NASEM GRP also recently funded the UF Gulf Scholars Program, which focuses on development of interdisciplinary undergraduate education.
These educational initiatives are particularly timely as Florida communities have been reeling from the impacts of a slew of recent hurricanes, most recently from Hurricane Ian (2022), Idalia (2023), Helene (2024), and Milton (2024).
For more information about these projects and how to get involved, please contact Andrea Galinski at andrea.galinski@ufl.edu.