The Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education has announced its 2017 grant and scholarship recipients. Seven awards were presented: one $20,000 Lesley Wheel Grant, two $10,000 Edison Price Fellowships, and four $5000 student awards. With this $60,000, the fund has now surpassed the million dollar mark bringing its total support of individuals and educational institutions advancing the study of lighting design to $1,055,000. “When a foundation to support lighting education in memory of Jim Nuckolls was first introduced by Lesley Wheel, she never could have imagined that one day we would have presented the sum of $1,055,000 in grants and awards,” said Nuckolls Fund president, Jeffrey A. Milham in a prepared statement. To date the fund has presented colleges and universities with a total of $730,000 in funding for curriculum development; instructors with $170,000 for professional development, and students with $155,000 in financial support to further their lighting education.
The 2017 awards are as follows:The $20,000 Lesley Wheel Grant provides support to schools establishing new lighting courses where a lighting curriculum has not previously been offered. This year’s grant was made to The University of Texas at San Antonio and Jae Yong Suk, Ph.D. Suk will develop a new lighting course for upper-level undergraduate students in the school’s architecture and interior design programs.
The first of the two $10,000 Edison Price Fellowships was presented to Elif Tural, Ph.D. from Virginia Tech. Tural will apply the grant toward a summer internship with Los Angeles-based lighting design firm Oculus Light Studio. The second $10,000 Edison Price Fellowship grant was given to Nam-Kyu Park, Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Park will also apply the grant for a summer internship, this one with architectural lighting and engineering design firm Francis Krahe & Associates in Los Angeles.
Awards at the $5,000 level were given as follows: The Jonas Bellovin Scholar Achievement Award was presented to Rohan Nagare, a student at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.; the Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award was given to Fatema Almajed, a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder; the first of two Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY) Student Achievement Awards was made to Michael Kuhlenengel, a student at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. The second DLFNY Student Achievement Award was presented to Madeline Halpern, a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
As the Fund approaches its 30th Anniversary in 2019, Jeff Milham has reaffirmed the fund’s “…goal to support the development and expansion of programs in architectural lighting design education in North America.” According to Milham, the board is also “…actively involved in preparing a long-term strategic plan for the Fund’s future.”
The deadline for 2018 Nuckolls Fund grant proposals is Feb. 9, 2018. For more information and to download the current grant RFPs forms go to the Nuckolls Fund website.
