Keywords:
architecture, academia, research
Abstract
Tailored expressly for PhD students or early-career faculty in Schools or Departments of Architecture, this talk will provide some pointers on what is needed to start up a basic research program as a faculty member in a school of architecture. The talk will principally focus on writing research proposals to the National Science Foundation but will also address other funding opportunities for architects in academia (AiA). Developing a funded research program as an architect (with an M.Arch terminal degree or a PhD in an allied engineering, or physical or social science field) is not easy. Besides the pressure of teaching time consuming design studio courses, architecture faculty generally do not have in-house MS or PhD students to advise and devote a major portion of their time to physical and virtual experiments required for funded basic research. In addition, architecture faculty who have research interests in building sciencerelated topics, such as building energy, materials, sustainable design, industrial ecology, and building systems, are often seen by funding agencies and even their own universities to be in competition with their engineering or science colleagues. The focus on this talk will be on how architects in academia can and should try to distinguish themselves from engineering and science researchers by emphasizing their intellectual and pedagogical backgrounds and experiences that bring a unique perspective to their research approach.
Author Biography
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Lawrence Bank
Lawrence (Larry) Bank has a faculty appointment as a Research Engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an Adjunct appointment at the City College of New York. From 2014-2015 he served as a Program Director in the Materials Engineering and Processing (MEP) at the US National Science Foundation. From 2010 to 2013 he was the Associate Provost and then Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs at the City College of New York. From 2008 to 2010, he was the Program Director for Structural Materials and Mechanics (SMM) at the US National Science Foundation while on leave from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Bank received his BSc degree from the Technion in Israel in 1980, and his MS and PhD degrees from Columbia University in New York City in 1982 and 1985, respectively. Prior to this Dr. Bank studied in the School of Architecture and the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He has previously been employed as a Structural Engineer with LERA (Leslie Robertson and Associates) in New York City, and as a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), The Catholic University of America, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the City College of New York (CCNY). He is the author of the textbook "Composites for Construction," (Wiley, 2006), over 200 technical publications, and 9 patents and invention disclosures. He is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and a Fellow (and Past President) of the International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC).
