Accolades

FY20

UTA College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs is featured on MyArlingtonTX about a new project "UTA Students Designing Outdoor Innovation Zone." The City of Arlington has partnered with CAPPA to create a design for an outdoor community working space with a technology-centered innovation zone. “Graduate students were tasked with creating a space that is interactive, flexible and social.” The goal is creating a space that truly serves the community, and their feedback will help guide the design process. 

 OnlineCollegePlan ranked UTA No. 9 in its 2019 Top 30 Online Masters of Public Administration rankings. The ranking was compiled using a variety of statistics that serve as indicators of the school’s reputation, availability of faculty, price, and flexibility for graduate students.

UTA has emerged as one of the top 100 colleges for Hispanic students, according to The Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine, The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported. Nationally ranked in three categories, UTA comes in at No. 5 in architecture degrees, No. 24 in total graduate degrees and No. 26 in total enrollment.

FY19

Urban planners, scholars, environmental organizations, designers, water officials and elected officials converged on The University of Texas at Arlington campus last week to participate in a workshop, titled “Future Cities, Livable Futures: Toward a Sustainable Model for Urban-Watershed Systems,” Ecology Daily News reported. By using a variety of disciplinary perspectives, the NSF workshop aimed to engage and examine the complexities that make up urban-watershed systems

UTA's College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs received approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to designate the Master of Architecture program as one whose curriculum is significantly anchored in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. UTA is one of just three universities in Texas to receive this designation for an architecture master’s program, Mirage News reported

Urban planners, scholars, environmental organizations, designers, water officials and elected officials will converge at UTA this month for a workshop to examine the complexities that make up urban-watershed systems, Mirage News reported. Adrian Parr, dean of the UTA College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, is the lead investigator on the National Science Foundation-funded workshop.

The online master of public administration program was ranked No. 15 nationally as the best value for that degree, according to an annual list from ValueColleges.com.

U.S. News & World Report ranked UTA among the best public affairs schools in the nation, The Caledonian-Record and NorthFulton.com reported.

UTA’s Institute of Urban Studies is studying the Fort Worth medical district’s needs and advantages, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in a story about the city’s Near Southside sector and the chances of making it a medical innovator hub.

UTA CAPPA teamed with AECOM, a global engineering, design and construction firm, to offer a new hypermobility class this semester, Dallas Innovates reported. The class includes topics like transportation, smart cities, drone delivery, the driverless car revolution, traveling at super high speeds with up-and-coming technologies like the Hyperloop and other mobility innovations

UTA’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs will be featured in an exhibition on "Water and Human Settlements" that Dean Adrian Parr was invited to curate for the European Cultural Center, Targeted News Service reported. The exhibitions are in conjunction with the 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale.

AIA Fort Worth recognized the UTA Architecture Building with it’s 25 year award for significant works in the region. The Architecture Building was designed by Pratt Box + Henderson in the early mid 80’s and deserved recognition for the following:

The UTA architecture program ranked No. 16 among architecture schools with 70 to 99 graduates most hired by firms in the last five years, Targeted News Service reported about a list that DesignIntelligence published.

CAPPA has been nationally ranked by DesignIntelligence as No.16 Architecture and No.12 Landscape Architecture schools with programs "Most Hired from by Firms".

OnlineMasters.com ranked UTA as the 33rd best university in the nation to attain an online master’s in public administration degree, Markets Insider and SFGate.com reported.

FY18

UTA’s Institute of Urban Studies in the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs has crafted a downtown redevelopment plan for Mineral Wells that is being instituted, the Mineral Wells Index reported.

Randy and Misty Nix have outlined their downtown vision and efforts, the Mineral Wells Index reported. That vision often follows a UTA study conducted several years ago. UTA’s Institute of Urban Studies in the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs crafted the plan. The Nixes have purchased many downtown Mineral Wells buildings.

FY17

The College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs received its largest grant to date. A University Transportation Center (UTC) grant was awarded to Dr. Shima Hamidi by the U.S. Department of Transportation and should be worth up to $7.7 million over the course of the next five years. This represents the first Lead on a University Transportation Center at UTA.

A six-page feature article in the October issue of D Magazine about the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs features Dean Nan Ellin and three CAPPA students, Myriam Igoufe, Ahoura Zandiatashbar and Lorin Washington.

As part of the relaunch of her Hallewood fan page, Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry chose a design by CAPPA Interior Design Junior Veronica Sanders to serve as the logo for the new site. Sanders’s winning design will be featured on the official Hallewood.com international fan page. She and a guest will travel to Los Angeles later this month for a few days with Halle Berry herself.

CAPPA PhD student Michael Gibson was honored by the Veterans National Honor Society with a Lifetime Membership, in recognition of academic excellence for maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Gibson is a second year doctoral student in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and is a student of Dr. Ard Anjomani.

On November 30, Texas Central, the private company developing the Texas bullet train, announced the winners of its Future Architects Design Competition. Two CAPPA students were among the awardees announced. Julia Green received the Station Architectural Design Prize for her Dallas Station Design. Adrian de Leon’s Dallas Station Design also received an Honorable Mention. Both are students of Professor Dustin Wheat.

The work of two CAPPA architecture graduate students, Elizabeth Hurtado and Ikram Eloualid, was featured in an installation at the Kirk Hopper Fine Art Gallery in Dallas.

CAPPA's Kevin Sloan, Assistant Professor in Practice in the School of Architecture, has been selected by The Dallas Morning News as a volunteer columnist in its Community Voices program.

Urban Planning and Public Policy student Indira Manandhar has been awarded the Diversity Scholars and Leader Award from the Association of Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), an international organization focusing on Nonprofit sector research. She presented a paper on Food Security, funded by a CAPPA seed grant, with Professor Karabi Bezboruah, PhD.

A number of CAPPA faculty and alumni were among the selected exhibitors honored at ENLACES, a juried exhibition showcasing Latino architects and design professionals in Dallas presented by AIA Dallas Latinos in Architecture Network. Carlos Bautista (MArch student, ‘15 BS); Dennis Chiessa (‘07 BS, ‘09 MArch); Alma Espinoza, Assoc. AIA (’11 BS, ’15 MArch); Wendy Hurtado (MArch student, ‘16 BS); Ricardo Leon, Assoc. AIA (’07 BS); Miguel Mendez, (MArch student, ’16 BS); Ricardo Munoz, AIA (’07 BS)

Yalcin Yildirim, a Ph.D. student in urban planning and public policy, was awarded a grant from the University Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities (UTRCLC) for his paper, "A Longitudinal Analysis: Accessibility to Transit and Housing Market Resiliency."

Zoranna Jones, a Ph.D. student in public and urban administration, and Lorin Washington, Ph.D. student in urban planning and public policy, were the recipients of 2016 APPAM Equity and Inclusion Fellowships to attend the 2016 Fall APPAM Research conference. They were among 25 students chosen among more than 100 applicants.

Kapreta Johnson, a PhD student in public and urban administration, was selected to present a poster, titled, "Reach Out and Touch: Volunteerism and its impact on society's perception of millennials of color," at the national conference for ARNOVA in Washington DC. Kapreta was also invited to participate in the Emerging Scholars Research Roundtables where participants provide constructive feedback for peer research papers.

Members of the faculty from CAPPA were recognized as finalists and award winners by AIA Dallas’s 2016 Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition (KRob). In addition, a number of CAPPA students were also selected as finalists. Winners: Steve Quevedo, Thomas Rusher. Finalists: Justin Ashby, Kelly Camargo, Asher Frailey AIAS, Steve Quevedo, Dustin Wheat, Thomas Rusher.

Pat D. Taylor has been inducted as a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Until his recent retirement, Dr. Taylor served as Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at UTA for twenty-four years.

Architect Marina Tabassum was recognized with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Bait Ur Rouf mosque in Bangladesh. Tabassum served as a visiting professor at CAPPA last year.

Todd Hamilton, professor of architecture, was recognized by Builder Magazine with a 2016 Design Award for the Deloache Residence project. Professor Hamilton served the project as the architect of record. Boback Firoozbakht ('08 BS), creative director at the Dallas-based firm BDDM, served as the designer.

FY16

CAPPA ranked number nine on Value Colleges' list of Top 50 Best Value Master of Public Administration Programs, based on metrics including average starting salary, cost of attendance and reputation.

CAPPA’s graduate program in public affairs is among the more than 20 graduate programs at UTA recognized in U.S. News & World Report’s 2017 edition of “Best Graduate Schools,”.

Mark Lamster, the award-winning architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News and a professor in practice of architecture at CAPPA, was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

David Hopman, Associate Professor and Interim Program Director of Landscape Architecture, was selected to serve as co-principal investigator for an interdisciplinary research project titled “GREEN STEAM: Using Principles of Design to Power the Development of Outdoor Educational Spaces.” The project has been selected for funding by UTA’s Office of the President as part of its Interdisciplinary Research Program to promote collaboration at UTA across academic units.

The Texas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers recognized CAPPA Interior Design student Veronica Sanders as a First Place winner in its 2016 Dallas Design Ovation Awards. Sanders's entry was selected in the student design category, "Student Designer - Real or Imagined". Almost four hundred DFW area interior designers and industry partners attended and entered their work in the prestigious competition.

A UTA student team’s design to reduce stormwater runoff that could result from future campus construction projects has won a national Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water award as part of the agency’s 2015 Campus RainWorks Challenge. The CAPPA team included landscape architecture graduate students Baishakhi Biswas, Sherry Fabricant, Jacob Schwarz and Ahoura Zandiatashbar, a doctoral student in urban planning and public policy.

In conjunction with the official launch of the new College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Arlington, CAPPA Dean Nan Ellin was profiled by contributing writer Andrew Moon, AIA, in the Winter 2016 edition of Columns magazine.

Zoranna Jones, PhD student in public and urban administration, was awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. Zoranna's research examines programs that influence STEM-educated African American graduates to pursue high tech entrepreneurship.

Myriam Igoufe, PhD student in urban planning and public policy and a researcher for the Institute of Urban Studies, was awarded the "Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship," a program administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.

CAPPA student Ana-Sofia Gonzalez was named leader of the month of the American Institute of Architecture Students. She served as AIAS UTA events coordinator in 2014-2015, vice president in 2015-2016 and president for the 2016-2017 year.

The City Influencer has named Lorin Washington one of Dallas-Fort Worth’s Most Influential College Students of 2016. The goal of the initiative is to celebrate African-American college students who are the epitome of what makes DFW such a special place in which to live, work and play. Lorin is a PhD student in the urban planning and public policy program.

The Texas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers recognized CAPPA interior design student Veronica Sanders as a First Place winner in its 2016 Dallas Design Ovation Awards. The event recognizes achievements in interior design and architecture, as well as special contributions to the Dallas area community.

Myriam Igoufe, PhD student in urban planning and public policy and a researcher for the Institute of Urban Studies, recieved a $1,000 award by the UTA Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities to investigate the true affordability of LIHTC units when transportation costs are factored in.

Ali Adil, PhD student of urban planning and public policy, received the Krishnan and Rohini Krishnan Graduate Fellowship for academic excellence in the area of renewable energy or sustainability studies /and or policy and economic aspects of energy. The fellowship is awarded by a competitive application process through the UTA Office of Graduate Studies.

Bang Dang and Rizwan Faruqui, AIA, partners at Far + Dang in Dallas, received a Juror Citation in the 2016 AIA Dallas Built Design Awards.

Ricardo Munoz, lecturer of architecture, earned a 2016 Texas Society of Architects Studio Award for his Element House design.

Karabi Bezboruah, associate professor of public affairs, received a Capacity Building Scholarship from the One Star Foundation to attend the 2016 Mission Capital Conference, a national conference for nonprofit scholars and practitioners.

Ivonne Audirac, program director of the planning program and associate professor of planning, has been selected as a Faculty Fellow in UTA’s Service Learning Program for the 2016-7 academic year. The program provides faculty with a year-long service-learning mentoring experience.

A modern farmhouse in Dallas designed by Todd Hamilton, professor of architecture, and Sidebar Collective was showcased in the current issue of Dwell. The house was featured in the 2015 AIA Dallas Fall Home Tour.

"TWELVE Houses", a selection of uniquely tailored residential designs by alumni and faculty of The University of Texas at Arlington were showcased in an exhibit at NorthPark Center in Dallas. The exhibit and accompanying catalogue were curated by longtime UTA architecture professor Todd Hamilton and is part of the American Institute of Architects Dallas Chapter’s 16th Annual Retrospect Graphic Competition.

Three CAPPA faculty members were awarded UTA Faculty Senate Travel Awards. Kathryn Holliday, Douglas Klahr, and Yekang Ko each recieved a $500 travel grant. This was the inaugural award from this grant program.

Ricardo Munoz, lecturer of architecture, received two Critic's Choice awards at the AIA Dallas 2016 Unbuilt Design Awards on April 28. Munoz's firm RCRD won the Critic's Choice First Place for the Light Basin project, and Third Place for the Element House project.

Yekang Ko, assistant professor of planning, was recognized as a recipient of the 2016 Professor of the Year award by the Arlington Sunrise Rotary Club. The award recognizes outstanding faculty across UTA's schools and colleges.

Kevin Sloan, assistant professor in practice of architecture, was recognized by AIA Dallas with an honorary membership at the 2016 Celebrate Architecture event on March 23.

FAB-LAB, an architectural concept designed by CAPPA visiting professor of architecture Alejandro Borges, was selected to be included in the 2016 Bienal IberoAmericana international exhibition, an initiative of the government of Spain to promote, discuss and project architecture and urbanism from the Americas, Spain and Portugal.