The School of Architecture at Mississippi State University is pleased to announce the addition of four new faculty members.

Emily McGlohn has joined the School as visiting assistant professor. She received her Master of Architecture from the University of Oregon and her Bachelor of Architecture from Auburn University, where she completed her thesis at the Rural Studio and remained after graduation as an instructor for three years. McGlohn next spent several years in professional practice at William McDonough + Partners and brwarchitects in Charlottesville, Va. 

Jacob Gines is another new visiting assistant professor at Mississippi State this year. He received his graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Utah, where he later taught as an adjunct in the design studios. Gines also practiced as a senior associate in the design firm of Method Studio in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Todd Walker, FAIA, is currently serving as a visiting design studio critic in the first-year studio. He is a principle and founding member of the awarding-winning Memphis firm archimania and has also received the prestigious “Eminent Architect of Practice” appointment for spring 2013.
Finas Townsend is currently serving as studio assistant in the first-year design studio. Townsend is from Memphis and received his Bachelor of Architecture from Mississippi State in 2011.

While on sabbatical leave last year, Professor Rachel McCann, PhD, presented two lectures in Europe, “Architectural Sense” at the Merleau-Ponty and the Sense of Space Symposium, University of Nottingham, England; and “Architectural Flesh in the Digital Age” at the Chalmers School of Architecture in Sweden.

David Perkes, AIA, director of the School’s Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, has been promoted to full professor.

Associate Professor Jane Britt Greenwood, AIA, has been selected as one of three Peer Discipline Reviewers for The Fulbright Program for architecture. Greenwood also serves as a Fulbright Program Campus Representative, working to promote the program to students and faculty.

The Carl Small Town Center (CSTC), a research center under the direction of Associate Professor John Poros, AIA, received the Public Outreach Award from The Mississippi Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA MS). The center won the award for its MS Bypass Guidelines, which were published this year. The Public Outreach award was one of only three awards given by the MS APA this year and is for an individual or program that uses information and education about the value of planning to create greater awareness among citizens and other segments of society.

The Carl Small Town Center has also been awarded a grant to work with communities along the Tanglefoot Trail on transportation and economic development issues. The $120,000 grant comes from the federally funded Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development and Education Center, a regional university transportation center located at the University of Florida. The funds will be shared by Mississippi State University, North Carolina State University and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Under the direction of Jassen Callender, associate professor, six teams of fifth-year students had documentary films selected for inclusion in the thirteenth annual Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson, Miss. The documentaries were produced in the fall of 2011 as part of the Theory of Urban Design course.
The six documentaries selected were:
• Richard Akin, Raymond Huffman, and Taylor Poole, From Field to Fork
• Scott Archer, Charles Barry, and Ryan Morris, Chinese Potatoes
• Audrey Bardwell, Aaron Schwartz, and Meredith Yale, Madison the City Needs (Renewable) Energy
• Anthony Dinolfo, Ryan Santos, and Amy Selvaggio, Point A to Point B
• Ingrid Gonzalez, Sam Grefseng, and Chris Hoal, The Built Environment of Jackson
• Lauren Arrington, Robert Featherston, and Jessica Harkins, Ward 3: Area in Need of Renewal

Jassen Callender also had a chapter, “Sustainable Urban Development,” in International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, published by Elsevier.

Visiting Assistant Professor Jacob Gines and Assistant Professor Hans Herrmann, AIA, are currently collaborating with Mississippi State University Transit to develop a series of pedestrian friendly transit stops and enclosures along proposed bus routes to connect the campus with the city of Starkville, Miss. The work is part of a $2.4 million Mississippi Department of Transportation public transit grant.

Hans Herrmann was also named ‘Emerging Professional’ by the AIA for 2012. His work was included in the annual exhibition, presented at AIA National’s headquarters, the American Center for Architecture, in Washington, D.C.

Alexis Gregory, Assistant Professor, had an article published in the summer issue of AIA Forward journal, Forward 112: Process. Forward, a scholarly journal, is produced by the National Associates Committee to provide a voice for Associate AIA members within the Institute.

Alexis Gregory also received  “The Bringing Theory to Practice Project” AACU 2013 Seminar Grant ($1000 w/ April Heiselt)  “ . . . to help support research on service-learning in architecture.” This grant is supported by the S. Engelhard Center and the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation.

Assistant Professor Justin Taylor had a paper, “Changing the Culture of Do Not Touch,” accepted to The 8th International Conference on Intelligent Environment (IE12) in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Rachel McKinley and Zachary James, students in the School of Architecture, received the Collaborative Project Award from APA MS. The award is for their work done in the Carl Small Town Center’s CREATE Common Ground class last spring, which focused on revitalizing New Albany, Miss. The Collaborative Project Award recognizes research, projects or other activities in which a student has worked collaboratively with practitioners/planners and/or faculty.

Mississippi State’s chapter of American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) participated in the national Green Apple Day of Service on Sept. 29. The group volunteered at the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum.

Mississippi State University’s Alpha Rho Chi fraternity recently raised and donated $1,250 to the Starkville Area Habitat for Humanity. Daniel Torres serves as the fraternity’s fundraising chairman, and Adam Rhoades is the chapter president. Alpha Rho Chi at Mississippi State primarily includes College of Art, Architecture and Design majors. From the fraternity’s inception almost three years ago, members have focused on donating to Starkville Area Habitat for Humanity.

Mack Braden and Michael Varhalla, students in the School of Architecture, won this year’s Brick Industry Association Design Competition. The two received a $1,000 travel scholarship for their achievement. The project was for the design of a culinary arts school in downtown Memphis, Tenn., as part of the spring 2012 third-year design studio taught by Assistant Professor Alexis D. Gregory, AIA, and Assistant Professor Hans Herrmann, AIA. Honorable Mention went to Chelsea Pierce and John Thomas.

Dalton Finch, Anthony Penny, Scott Polley and Colton Stephens, third-year students in the School of Architecture, designed the recently completed Habitat for Humanity house located on Steadman Lane in Starkville, Miss. The students worked on the design as part of Assistant Professor Alexis Gregory’s class that included 11 students working on several design options for the nonprofit organization.

Emily Roush Elliott has been chosen as an Enterprise Rose Architecture fellow by the Carl Small Town Center (CSTC). Elliot earned her Bachelor of Science in Design from Arizona State University and her Master of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati. As a Fellow, she will be able to draw from her work in Tanzania, where she successfully integrated social and environmental sustainability in a similarly rural environment, to establish a redevelopment plan for the Baptist Town community in Greenwood, Miss. The CSTC was one of just four national organizations selected to host a Fellow.

See photos, and read more news from the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University at http://caad.msstate.edu/wpmu/sarcnews/