Through a new seed funding opportunity supported by the OU Norman Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships, the OU Health Sciences Center Vice President for Research and the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture, two teams will each receive up to $30,000 to support interdisciplinary research at the intersection of health, well-being, and the built environment. This seed funding is intended to foster the creation and development of multidisciplinary research teams to tackle grand challenges at the intersection of these subjects and to increase the competitiveness of OU multidisciplinary research teams in gaining external funding.
Improving Nursing Home Dementia Care Outcomes Through Evidence-Based Building Design: Capturing Missed Opportunities is co-led by team leader and OU-HSC principal investigator Julie Gordon, DRPH, CPHQ, in the Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing, with OU Norman principal investigator Xiaobo Quan, Ph.D., in the Gibbs College of Architecture. Team members include Hongwan Li, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Hudson College of Public Health; Diana Sturdevant, Ph.D., APRN, assistant professor of research in the Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing; Kim Cassie, Ph.D., MSSW, assistant professor in the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at OU-Tulsa; Javeed Kittur, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Gallogly College of Engineering; and Shakil Shimul, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Gibbs College of Architecture.
The Therapeutic Impacts of Virtual Reality Multi-Sensory Environments on Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in Central Oklahoma is co-led by OU Norman principal investigator Negar Matin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Gibbs College of Architecture, with OU-HSC principal investigator Anna Nguyen, Ph.D., RN, CPN, assistant professor in the Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing, and co-PI Yeji Yi, Ph.D., lecturer in the Gibbs College of Architecture. Team members include Steve Couch, M.D., neurodevelopmental pediatrician, and Kissy Heiskell, occupational therapist.
Congratulations to our Gibbs faculty members who received this grant!
The University of Oklahoma College of Architecture is proud to announce that Model Schools in the Model City, authored by Director of the Institute for Quality Communities, Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., has been named one of ten finalists for the 2026 ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture.
This semester, students in the LA 5535 Studio: Ecological Planning and Design, led by Prof. Afsana Sharmin, took on an ambitious hypothetical project to redesign key parts of the OU campus. Their mission: to tackle the critical real-world challenge of stormwater management through innovative green design.
Petya Stefanoff, Chair of the Educational Committee with the American Planning Association, Oklahoma Chapter (APA-OK) and Gibbs College PhD candidate, has developed a new training program for local government officials. The program, focused on land use, zoning principles, and land development, recently certified its first graduates with Certified Citizen Planner status.
