Associate Professors Lee Fithian, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Pober have published a chapter in the recently released New Perspectives in Indoor Air Quality, published by Elsevier. Their contribution, titled “Chapter 16 – Architecture and the Challenges of Indoor Air Quality,” examines the relationship between architecture and indoor air quality.
Gibbs College Interior Design professors, Dr. Suchi Bhattacharjee and Dr. Yeji Yi, as well as PhD. Student Abrar Talal Alhamadi, have been awarded the 2025 Irene Winifred Eno Grant from the American Society of Interior Design Foundation. The grant will support their project “Artificial Intelligence Assisted Design for Independent Living.”
Salma Akter Surma, a Ph.D. student in Gibbs College’s Planning, Design and Construction program, has been awarded the Nancy L. Mergler Dissertation Completion Fellowship for the 2025–2026 academic year. This competitive fellowship, awarded by the OU Graduate College, supports outstanding doctoral candidates in the final stages of their dissertation research.
Dr. Suchi Bhattacharjee, Dr. Chie Noyori-Corbett, and Ph.D. candidate Salma Akter have collaborated on a chapter titled “Sheltering Hope: Navigating the Nexus of Refugee Housing Conditions and Well-Being”, featured in the book “Migration and Forced Displacement.”
Salma Akter Surma, a Ph.D. candidate at Gibbs College has co-authored a study published in the Journal of Urban Management. The research investigates the experiences of women in urban informal settlements of Khulna, Bangladesh, during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on how housing infrastructure influenced caregiving responsibilities.
OU Interior Design Associate Professor Mia Kile is a leading co-principal investigator of the Happy Teacher Project: Happy Teacher Wellness Intervention initiative. This project focuses on improving the well-being of early childhood educators by creating dedicated wellness rooms — spaces where teachers and staff can rest and recharge, helping to address the physical, psychological, and professional demands of their work.
OU Architecture Associate Professor Wanda Liebermann recently announced the release of her new book, Architecture’s Disability Problem. The book explores the intersection of architecture and disability in the United States from the perspective of professional practice. Liebermann investigates why, despite the huge impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on the architectural profession, there has been so little interest in design for disability in mainstream architecture.
Bryce Lowery, associate professor of Regional and City Planning, recently published an article in The Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. The article, “Societal Transformation Through Social Entrepreneurial Action Research,” explores recent research Lowery conducted with collaborators from the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business and School of Public Affairs.
Open Design Collective, a non-profit organization founded by Gibbs College Professors Vanessa Morrison and Deborah Richards, was recently awarded an Environmental Justice Government-to-Government Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. Open Design will receive $500,000 to engage, support and strengthen community-led efforts in the historically Black John F. Kennedy Neighborhood in Northeast Oklahoma City.
In November, the Yukon City Council approved an agreement with the IQC to develop a tree canopy plan for Garth Brooks Boulevard. Yukon planning staff will work closely with a group of OU Environmental Design students, led by Professor Sarah Little, to create unique design concepts for this corridor.
The community of Westville, Oklahoma was recently awarded a Built Environment Grant from the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust to continue implementing a plan developed by OU’s Institute for Quality Communities. With the designs provided by the OU team, Westville city officials hope to enhance the town’s streetscapes and improve overall community connectivity.
Interior Design student Naila Hasan recently presented her research at the 2023 Interior Design Educators Council Southwest Regional Conference, where she received the award for Best Poster Presenter. Hasan presented the results from her recent study, The Relationship Between Natural Lighting and Biophilic Elements and Children’s Behaviors, co-authored by Yeji Yi, assistant professor of Interior Design.
Marjorie Callahan, professor of Architecture, was recently invited to speak at the 2023 Annual OU Law Conference. The conference took place from Sept. 22-23 at the OU College of Law and featured a variety of keynote speakers, presentations and activities. Callahan gave the keynote address at the conference’s reception dinner and spoke about the value of Architecture in jail design.
OU Interior Design Faculty recently presented at the Environmental Design Research Association’s 54th Annual Mexico City Conference. Professors of Interior Design Dawn Loraas and Yeji Yi both attended the conference and shared their research findings.
Salma Akter Surma, a Ph.D. student in Planning, Design and Construction, was recently awarded the Security in Context Research Fellowship from the OU Center for Peace and Development. During her fellowship, Akter will research how trauma-informed care approaches can be applied in the planning and design process of child-friendly built environments in the refugee context.
Professors of Interior Design Mia Kile and Dawn Loraas recently received seed funding grants from the OU Institute for Community and Society Transformation. ICAST awarded seed funding grants to seven interdisciplinary teams to aid in the development of their projects related to community and societal transformation.
The OU Carceral Studies Consortium recently announced the recipients of the Spring 2023 Community-Engaged Micro-Grants and Undergraduate Student Work Prizes. The Carceral Consortium offers two micro-grants of up to $500 to OU students, faculty and staff members to support research, mentorships and community engagement projects. Among this year’s grant recipients are Marjorie Callahan, a professor of architecture, and Kristi Saliba, an architecture student.
GCA Communications intern Kathlyn Dannewald spoke with Dr. Wanda Katja Lieberman, a practicing architect and architectural and urban historian. She is also an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. We sat down with Dr. Liebermann to discuss her upcoming book on architecture, disability, and accessibility.
Dr. Xiaobo Quan, the Violeta Autumn Teaching Fellow in the Gibbs Architecture program, recently attended at the 2022 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo hosted by the Center for Health Design and the Academy of Architecture for Health of the American Institute of Architects (AIA/AAH).
Angela Lee, an alumna of the Gibbs College of Architecture and member of the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows, was recently featured in an article on the HKS, Inc. website.
Gibbs College of Architecture faculty members,Professor Dave Boeck and Dr. Bryce Lowery, recently presented at the 2022 Oklahoma Housing Conference hosted by the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency (OHFA), an organization that works to provide housing resources to the Oklahoman community.
John Harris, Director of the Regional + City Planning program, recently published an article in a special issue of the Journal of Urban Affairs titled “The gendered postconflict city: Possibilities for more livable urban transformations in Gulu, northern Uganda.” Harris – along with co-authors Daniel Komakech, David Monk, and Maria del Guadalupe Davidson – attempt to develop theory and urban management concepts around the notion of the gendered postconflict city as a unique urban identity. The article also works to re-center the analysis on the everyday experiences, agency, and city building practices of women.
Dr. C. Aujean Lee, Assistant Professor of Regional + City Planning, was recently interviewed on a TV show in South Korea about anti-Asian violence and stigma. Dr. Lee published an article on anti-Asian hate and local government responses in the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and was invited to be interviewed on an episode of PD Notes, an investigative journalism TV program in South Korea.
Dr. Wenwen Cheng, assistant professor of Landscape Architecture, was recently awarded funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to support her project titled “A Spatial Decision Support System for Identifying Heat Vulnerability Based on a Comprehensive Energy Budget Model and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Oklahoma City, OK,” with an amount of $149,163.
Dr. Bryce Lowery, associate professor of Regional + City Planning, recently published an article titled, “Food Waste, Preference, and Cost: Perceived Barriers and Self-Reported Food Service Best Practices in Family Child Care Homes” in the journal Childhood Obesity. This publication is part of Dr. Lowery’s work with a team at the University of Oklahoma Health and Sciences Center.
Dr. Negar Matin, an assistant professor of Interior Design, has been conducting research on the effects of photochromic coatings on the performance of buildings’ façades. She is conducting this project with research partners from the GameAbove College of Engineering and Technology at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) including Professor Ali Eydgahi, Dr. Mirabedini and Dr. Zareanshahraki. Zhina Rashidzadeh, a PhD student with Gibbs, is also working on the project.
Dr. Bryce Lowery, an associate professor with the Regional + City Planning Division, recently delivered the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Tulsa Food Security Council.
Four studios, two undergraduate level and two graduate level, of architecture students have been working on a project designing housing and community space for all abilities in the Norman area. The undergraduate studios are led by Amy Leveno and Esin Pektas. The graduate studios are led by Dr. Lee Fithian and Sam Callahan.
Dr. Bryce Lowery co-authored three studies examining how access to food and green space affects early child care settings in Oklahoma. The research found that these environments can help support children’s nutrition and activity, even in underserved areas.
David Boeck, an associate professor in the Gibbs College of Architecture, was recently featured in The Oklahoman. The article, titled “Can aging-in-place, universal design go mainstream? This Oklahoma homebuilder is betting on it,” features Boeck’s recent work with Ideal Homes and Neighborhoods, incorporating aging-in-place and universal home design into Ideal Homes’ new construction in Norman, Moore, and Stillwater.
In Spring of 2020, leaders of Afton, Oklahoma, reached out to the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) for assistance for a project to turn the former Afton City Hall building into a Farmer’s Market and community space. The IQC collaborated with the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture’s Division of Interior Design to complete this project.
On April 19, 2021, RCPL assistant professor C. Aujean Lee presented her research to the West Virginia University Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. Her presentation, entitled “A Racism Typology and Government Responses to Anti-Asian Discrimination and Incidents,” shared research findings on her study with John C. Arroyo (University of Oregon) about state and local government statements on anti-Asian hate crimes in early 2020.
