Announcing the Recipients of the Fall 2025 Architecture Awards

M.Arch & MUD Student Award
The Burdett Assistantship is intended to support projects and activities that will enhance the winning student’s future work.

Awardee: Aanchal Bansal, M.Arch ’26
Proposal: Sustainable Material Futures in Airport Architecture: Regional Approaches to Large-Scale Infrastructure
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: This award will support Aanchal’s continued study of large-scale airport infrastructure. The proposal clearly showed the student’s professional aspirations with this building type and its necessary infrastructure.

Awardee: Tamar Cherkezishvili, MUD ’26
Proposal: The Architecture of Self-Sufficiency: Regaining Agency Within Imposed Uniformity
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: This award will support Tamar’s fieldwork in Tserovani, Georgia. The jury was particularly impressed by the topic and funding request to study the topic of displaced populations evolving into a permanent settlement.

Awardee: Dyanavitha Balaji Parimi, MUD ’26
Proposal: Commons-Oriented Urban Design Strategies for Post-Coal Regeneration: Reimagining Neyveli Township
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: This proposal centers around economic-based models of dependent communities and the reestablishment of their own agency. The jury found the topic to be well considered and socially minded.

Undergraduate, Master's & PhD Student Award
The Alwin Cassens, Jr. Memorial Fund in Architecture provides financial support to students to attend conferences or other events in support of their academic pursuits in the area of public interest design.

Awardee: Christian Duckworth, B.Arch ’27
Proposal: Performative-Based Implications Between Homelessness and Design in Pittsburgh
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: The jury was particularly impressed by Christian's empathy towards the subject and the need for fieldwork to aid with future design prototypes.

Awardee: Morgan Newman, PhD-Arch
Proposal: Presenting the paper “Repairing In The Wake: A Case Study of Black Life in Alabama's Black Belt” at the 2026 American Association of Geographers (AAG) Conference in San Francisco in March 2026
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: The committee supports Morgan's ability to attend this conference and present her research.

Undergraduate Student Award
The Measuring & Monitoring Services, Inc. Internship Fund provides financial support to undergraduate students who wish to undertake a summer internship or project during the summer preceding their final year of undergraduate study.

Awardee: Ishika Dinesh, B.Arch ’27
Project: Nomadic Walls: Independent Study & Onsite Construction in Bangalore, India
Award: $1,500
Jury Comment: This award is presented to Ishika Dinesh to help with on-site construction in Bangalore, India, focusing on locally sourced and recycled materials with faculty advising by professor Jongwan Kwon.

Awardee: Simon Han, B.Arch ’27
Internship: HOK San Francisco, working on the Lambert Airport redevelopment
Award: $1,500
Jury Comment: This award will help support Simon’s upcoming internship with HOK in San Francisco.

Awardee: Tian Ming, B.Arch ’27
Internship: Architecture Intern at ZGF in Portland, Oregon
Award: $1,500
Jury Comment: This award will help support Tian’s upcoming internship with ZGF in Portland, Ore.

Student Award
The Ferguson Jacobs Prize in Architecture was established to promote the continuity of traditional architecture and building techniques in contemporary architectural practice. It supports projects and travel experiences that explore traditional architecture and building techniques as vital knowledge to an architect’s education, practice and scholarship. For students, the prize can also support individual apprenticeships and internships with a focus on traditional architecture and/or building techniques.

Awardee: Hazel Froling, B.Arch ’26
Proposal: Framing The Future: Towards a Computational Framework for Timber Framing Education
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: Hazel Froling’s thesis-based proposal will develop a computational framework for teaching tacit craft knowledge in timber framing. The committee recognized the project’s emphasis on integrating hands-on making with accessible digital learning tools and its potential to revive and reinterpret New England timber framing traditions for contemporary building practices.

Awardee: Tai Le, M.Arch ’26
Proposal: Flood-Adapted Architecture in the Mekong Delta
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: Tai Le will investigate the amphibious architectural traditions of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, demonstrating a deep engagement with traditional knowledge, craft, and place-based research. The committee recognized the project’s contextual specificity, methodological clarity, and its potential to inform future approaches to environmentally resilient and socially equitable design.

Undergraduate, Master's & Ph.D. Student Award
Administered by the Laboratory for Cybernetics, the Cybernetics Prize creates incentives to understand and incorporate the systemic rigor and explanatory models of cybernetics in order to design effective approaches to the most difficult 21st-century obstacles to equity and peace at all scales, including "wicked challenges." Cybernetics is a systems discipline uniquely suited to wicked challenges because it forefronts information and purpose for guiding design and action in today’s complex entanglements of natural, technological and social systems. In this 2025 inaugural year of the Cybernetics Prize, 30 submissions were received from a wide range of CMU departments and years of study. Of the four finalists, two tied for first place due to their outstanding quality; the jury honors both of them equally by splitting the $5,000 prize between the two submissions. For a full description of the prize, including eligibility, criteria and intentions, visit the Cybernetics Prize page.

First Place (tie): Fas Lebbie, Ph.D. in Transition Design, School of Design ’25
Project: Africa Mineral Pulse: Designing Agency in Africa’s Extractive Economies
Award: $2,500
Description: This design proposal explores how mineral transitions in Africa can be actualized by increasing access to data, thereby enhancing choices for designing sustainable mineral futures. The pulse model proposes three categories: de-risking investment for sustainable mining practices, developing local beneficiation infrastructure, and redistributing mineral wealth to local communities, to transform how individuals and communities understand their contexts and make choices aligned with their values and intentions. This work shifts communities from being mineral resource providers to being system stewards capable of defining and navigating their own mineral futures. 
Jury Comment: The jury selected this project for identifying cracks in the current system, focusing on a very relevant wicked challenge, and using aggregate data in powerful ways that sparks greater questions.

First Place (tie): Chris Wu, MAAD ’26; Yuhan Wu, MUD ’25; Franklin Xu, MAAD ’25; Minghao Xu, PhD-BPD ’29 
Project: IntraNote: Prototyping an AI-Driven Design Rationale System Supporting Participatory Conversations
Award: $2,500
Description: IntraNote supports participatory design in complex, multi-stakeholder settings. By focusing on conversations in design charrettes, IntraNote helps participants reflect, identify shared values, and engage with the perspectives of others. Through the implementation of a technical demo and a pilot study, the project team further conceptualizes the system as a symbiotic interface that provides scaffolding information to trigger deeper questioning, allowing participants to explore shared trajectories from their own perspectives. 
Jury Comment: The jury selected this project for its strong, articulate design rationale that challenges the still-dominant paradigm of computing as an input/output computational engine; and by embracing relevance for present-day approaches to AI, taken as a given, for exploring the practical challenge of harnessing it as the basis for participatory interaction.

Honorable Mention: Jaimie An, M.S. in Public Policy & Management, Heinz College ’25; David Fuentes, M.S. in Information Security Policy & Management, Heinz College ’26); Amy Kang, M.S. in Public Policy & Management, Heinz College ’26; Liv Schaefer, M.S. in Public Policy & Management, Heinz College ’26
Project: The RIF Impact Framework: Language, Legibility and Design for Government Capacity 
Description: This design brief is a cybernetic intervention designed to address the growing invisibility of workforce disruptions across the U.S. federal government. The public sector lacks a coherent method to track and interpret what capabilities are being lost, undermining democratic oversight and future planning. The design brief offers a lightweight, ethics-driven framework combining a structured data schema with a reflexive practice grounded in systems thinking. 
Jury Comment: The jury selected this project because it identifies a present problem and proposes a valuable method for capturing the loss of workers through a publicly produced database.

Honorable Mention: Sagarika Kulkarni, MUD ’25
Project: Fisherwomen of Mumbai: Rethinking the Cycles of Work & Wealth
Description: Mumbai’s fisherwomen sustain their livelihoods through deeply rooted commoning practices, solidarity networks, self-help groups, shared reproductive labor, and informal financial pacts. These systems provide economic and social resilience, yet the women remain unrecognized within the city’s formal structures. This research explores how formalizing fisherwomen’s existing informal networks and practices through cooperative models can strengthen their economic security, ensuring the year-round functioning of fishing and allied value chains. 
Jury Comment: The jury selected this project for its model of cooperation that reinforces Mumbai’s fishing economy but also integrates spaces of care and community support within the discipline of systems thinking.

Undergraduate & Master’s Student Award
The Gindroz Prize for Summer Travel and Study in Europe was established to enrich lives and enhance education through travel and the study of traditional architecture, urbanism and music in Europe.

Awardee: Silvia Kim, B.Arch ’28 
Proposal: Human-Scale Civic Systems: Lessons from Historic Urbanism in Waterfront Cities
Award: $8,200
Jury Comment: This is a rigorous and well-developed study that uses the themes of walkability and waterfront access to examine broader questions of infrastructure, civic life, and functional urban diversity. Bolstered by her excellent sketching skills, the well-conceived proposal also laid out a clear schedule for research, production and budget.

Master's Student Award
The Luther S. Lashmit Traveling Scholarship supports international travel and research under the guidance of a faculty advisor for master's students with one year remaining in their degree program.

Awardee: Amy Dinh, M.Arch ’27
Proposal: The Architecture of Change: Tracing the Transformations of Metabolic Japan
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: This study explores the legacy of Japanese Metabolist architecture as an adaptable, living infrastructure. The thoughtful project looks at the complex interrelationship between adaptability, reuse and preservation.

Awardee: Avaneesh Nataraja, M.Arch ’27
Proposal: Visible Publics in Sao Paulo, Brazil: Social Ambition in the Place-Form Architecture of Lina Bo Bardi and Paulo Mendes Da Rocha
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: This project is tightly conceived with a clear set of case studies exploring the spatial politics of public architecture. It combines a rich blend of theoretical and historical analysis with on-site observation and documentation. His outstanding representational skills should further enhance the final outcome of the project.

Fourth-Year B.Arch Student Award
The Louis F. Valentour Traveling Scholarship supports international travel and research under the guidance of a faculty advisor for fourth-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) students.

Awardee: Catalina John-Melendez, B.Arch ’27
Proposal: Earthen Construction as Tangible Cultural Heritage in South America
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: The proposal focuses on documenting the material uses of adobe construction as they relate to crucial questions of cultural heritage and sustainability. Its value lies in its dual focus of examining the ancient technique of earthen architecture alongside its contemporary applications.

Awardee: Francesca Menendez, B.Arch ’27
Proposal: Built to Breathe: Dry-Stack Masonry Construction as Ecological Infrastructure in Hawaiian Fishponds
Award: $6,500
Jury Comment: This unique project involves a compelling focus on the triad of community knowledge, tectonics, and ecological processes. It is well written, tightly focused, and builds upon her prior work on the topic, suggesting it is ready to be implemented.

Fourth- & Fifth-Year B.Arch Student Award
The John Knox Shear Award supports international travel and research under the guidance of a faculty advisor for fourth- and fifth-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) students.

First Place: Angela Yang, B.Arch ’26
Proposal: Soft Power, Hard Space: Fieldwork in the Architecture of Childhood
Award: $4,000
Jury Comment: This proposal illustrates an ambitious and conceptually sophisticated project that explores the architecture of pedagogy in China through the lens of the Children’s Palace (少年宫, Shao Nian Gong). The research demonstrates intellectual maturity and clarity, articulating a compelling trajectory that bridges historical analysis, ethnography and design-build experimentation. Reviewers praised its clear structure, well-paced plan, and evocative visual documentation, highlighting its potential to translate field research into built form. Despite its ambitious scope, the project’s engagement with architecture as a soft infrastructure of learning and power promises meaningful and critical design insights, especially for the candidate's thesis.

Honorable Mention: Khoi Do, B.Arch ’26
Proposal: Joy As Resistance
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: This design research proposes travel to Thu Thiem in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It shows a powerful and timely project that examines urban transformation, displacement and political power in Ho Chi Minh City’s contested development zone. The committee was drawn to the proposal’s sensitivity in socio-spatial dynamics and its commitment to ethnographic and design-based inquiry. While the scope and timeframe may challenge the depth of on-site engagement, the proposal’s intellectual rigor, ethical awareness, and clarity of intent position it as an insightful contribution.

Honorable Mention: Shreeja Harisrikanth, B.Arch ’26
Proposal: Travel to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to Study Lanna Vernacular Architecture
Award: $3,000
Jury Comment: This proposal illustrates an exceptional project that explores how Lanna building traditions in Chiang Mai embody ecological awareness, collective memory and cultural reciprocity. The committee praised its focused scope, clear purpose, and deep engagement with local builders and institutions, noting its well-structured plan and compelling visual research. By combining ethnographic inquiry, fabrication and joinery studies, the proposal demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of architecture as both cultural and material practice. With its collaborative and place-based approach, this work beautifully bridges craft, ecology and community, advancing design as a form of learning and care.

M.Arch Student Award

First Place: Rupal Singh, M.Arch ’26 
Title: Tending to Life: Ecology of Maintenance in Japan
Award: $1,000
Jury Comment: This proposal investigates the philosophical and practical frameworks of repair and sustainability embedded in Japanese architecture and cultural practices across varied contexts and case studies. The jury was impressed by the sketchbook's notations, insights and observations; by post-travel production and reflection; and by the relevance of this study to multi-scalar, multi-temporal practices of care and repair.

Honorable Mention: Sanjana Bandaru, M.Arch ’26 
Title: Studying the Everyday Life of the In-Between
Jury Comment: This project investigates how concepts of everyday "in-between" spaces shape public experience, using London’s Barbican as a case study. The jury was impressed by the project’s translations of theory into field observations and the sustained commitment to this inquiry through on-site observations, documentation and drawing.

Honorable Mention: Tai Le, M.Arch ’26 
Title: Claude Parent Architecture: Fonction Oblique
Jury Comment: This travel study investigates the work of Claude Parent, in particular Parent's use of the architectural surface toward modes of spatial dynamism and organization. The jury acknowledges the in-depth documentation of select projects by Parent through on-site sketches and post-travel models and drawings.

M.Arch Student Award
The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) program grants travel awards each spring for selected students to support work grounded in architectural design research. The awards facilitate research related to a range of diverse contexts, practices and cultures. Students are encouraged to take on research projects in areas of their choice that will be further developed through research papers, a thesis or independent study. Upon completion of the travel, students deliver a Pecha Kucha style presentation of their travel study and ongoing research.

2025 Award Amount: up to $3,000 each

Awardee: Sanjana Bandaru, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: England (London): London Public Architecture

Awardee: Emmaline Hubbs, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Costa Rica: Constructing Communities of Synergy

Awardee: Tai Le, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: France (Paris): Claude Parent's Architecture

Awardee: Lora Marks, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Norway (Oslo, Brumunddal, Bergen, Magnor): Pine-ing for the Skies

Awardee: Sarah Meronek, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: France (Paris): Sociology & Architecture of Communal Spaces

Awardee: Reece Posey, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Argentina (Buenos Aires): Brutalist Buenos Aires

Awardee: Sparsha Reddy Kotha, M.Arch ’25 
Proposal: Finland: Timber and Tradition

Awardee: Siddhant Salvi, M.Arch ’25 
Proposal: USA (New York City) & Norway: Reimagining Public Space: Snøhetta

Awardee: Anoushka Sethi, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Italy (Venice): Temporary Installations Venice Biennale

Awardee: Sharvi Shah, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Netherlands, Belgium & Denmark: Shifting Material Systems: Rotor, MVRDV

Awardee: Rupal Singh, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Japan: Tending to Life: Ecology of Maintenance in Japan

Awardee: Isheanesu Tendayi, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Denmark: Evolving Design Futures: Digital Twins

Awardee: Joanne Zeng, M.Arch ’26 
Proposal: Finland: Materiality and Human-Centered Design: Alvar Aalto

Undergraduate Student Award
The Andrew Carnegie Society (ACS) Scholars Program recognizes undergraduate seniors who embody CMU’s high standards of academic excellence, volunteerism, leadership and involvement in student organizations, athletics or the arts. Scholars are selected each year by their deans and department heads to represent their class in service and leadership. Scholars receive a monetary award, funded by ACS members, to support their academic and personal growth, and participate in an annual giveback event with $5,000 to support student-led projects, campus organizations or the campus community.

Awardee: Charlie Hymowitz, B.Arch ’26

B.Arch or M.Arch Student Award
The AIA Pennsylvania Architectural Excellence Student Award recognizes the exceptional scholastic achievement and future promise of a student in the upcoming graduating class. The student shall have proven to be proficient in both academics and design, and ready to take on the challenges and responsibilities of the work environment in an architecture firm. The student is nominated by the faculty.

Awardee: Andrew Long, M.Arch ’26