News

Nancy Abshire, Executive Director of the SOM Foundation between 2010 and 2019, has been awarded the 2021 Chicago Women in Architecture Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award by the Chicago Women in Architecture Foundation and the Chicago Women in Architecture.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2021 SOM Foundation China Fellowship. The $5,000 China Fellowship is awarded annually to three students in the last two years of either an undergraduate or graduate program in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design at a university in the People’s Republic of China. The Fellowship provides financial support to conduct independent travel and research that contributes to the SOM Foundation’s current topic.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the 2021 Structural Engineering Fellowship. Michelle Chang will receive $20,000 to conduct original research. This year’s topic, “Examining Social Justice in Urban Contexts,” encouraged applicants to explore and identify long-term policies, immediate actions, and comprehensive plans have the potential to shape a more equitable and sustainable future. Chang’s proposal, “Decolonizing Urban Landscapes: Reclaiming a Black and Indigenous Right to the City through Structural Design,” aims to study exemplary structures in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that address race relations in both process and form.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2021 SOM Foundation Structural Engineering Fellowship. The $20,000 fellowship is awarded annually to a graduating student who specializes in structural engineering to conduct independent travel and research that contributes to the SOM Foundation’s current topic and has the potential to influence the practice and teaching of how structures can positively impact our built environment.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 SOM Foundation Robert L. Wesley Award. Three fellows, Viridiana Hernandez Sevilla, Temi Osanyintolu, and Daniella Slowik will each receive a $10,000 unrestricted award to support their academic development. In addition to the three fellows, the jury decided to expand the number of fellows to include two $5,000 unrestricted awards to Corey Norman and Kenya Steward. All recipients of the award will be mentored for a year by the jurors and an extended network of advisors.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 SOM Foundation Research Prize. Two teams—one from the University of Texas at Arlington and one from Tulane University—will each receive a grant of $40,000 to conduct original research. The Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research with the goal of addressing critical issues of our time. This year’s topic, “Examining Social Justice in Urban Contexts,” encouraged applicants to explore and identify long-term policies, immediate actions, and comprehensive plans have the potential to shape a more equitable and sustainable future. Twenty-one proposals were submitted from faculty and universities across the US, focusing on antiracism, advocacy, climate change, environmental justice, governance, inclusiveness, mobility, participatory processes, public space, resilience, urban ecology, and youth.

Robert L. Wesley, retired SOM Partner and eponym of the SOM Foundation's newest award, was the convocation speaker for the University of Oklahoma Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture on Friday, December 18, 2020.