News

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2025 Robert L. Wesley Award. The award supports BIPOC undergraduate students enrolled in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, urban design, or engineering programs in the United States. This year, three students will receive a $10,000 award in addition to a yearlong mentorship program that connects the students with leading BIPOC practitioners and educators. The award is named in honor of Robert L. Wesley, the first Black partner at SOM.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2025 Research Prize. Two $30,000 prizes will be awarded to faculty-led interdisciplinary teams based in the United States to conduct original research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Exploring the Potential of Mobility Corridors.” The Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2025 European Research Prize. The €20,000 prize will be awarded to a faculty-led interdisciplinary team based in Europe to conduct original research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Exploring the Potential of Mobility Corridors.” The European Research Prize was created in 2021 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.

The SOM Foundation, in partnership with the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), is pleased to announce the third William F. Baker International Research and Design Forum. This year’s edition will take place on Thursday, November 6, 2025, and will be organized in partnership with the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) on the campus of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The full-day event will include presentations by academics and industry leaders whose body of work, creativity, and expertise inspire the future of materiality, assembly, and technology in the built world.

Edward M. (Ted) Segal, associate professor of engineering at Hofstra University, works at the intersection of art, design, technology, and teaching. In a recent conversation, Segal shares how his design/research team at Hofstra approaches material exploration in novel ways, discusses the importance of fostering curiosity and collaborative exploration with his students, and describes how the research he conducted on modeling during his 2008 Structural Engineering Traveling Fellowship remains relevant to his work today. This interview, conducted by Molly Hanse, is part of a series of conversations that explores how SOM Foundation fellows are shaping the future of their fields.

Emily McGlohn (2024 Research Prize) is a recipient of Architectural Record’s 2025 Women in Architecture Award. She and the four other 2025 laureates will be honored at a ceremony held on September 9 on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

In the five years since Daniella Slowik was an inaugural recipient of the SOM Foundation’s Robert L. Wesley Award, Slowik’s climate-focused work in landscape architecture have taken her across the country and the world: from Harvard Graduate School to a rural community in Portugal, from a biosphere reserve in Mexico to her new home in the Netherlands. Along the way, Slowik has deepened her conviction to use her design skills to support the most under-resourced landscapes and communities. This interview, conducted by Molly Hanse, is part of a series of conversations that explores how SOM Foundation fellows are shaping the future of their field.