This year’s John and Magda McHale Fellow is Swiss architect Philippe Rahm. He will be conducting research on “meteorological architecture” through a graduate studio, multiple presentations and a public lecture. This year’s Peter Reyner Banham Fellow is Curt Gambetta, who will be conducting research on the public life of sanitation infrastructure through seminars, a public lecture and exhibition.  He will also be teaching design studio in the Junior year. 
Professor Edward Steinfeld presented at the U.S. Launch and Symposium for the World Report on Disability on September 12-13 in Arlington, VA. The World report on disability summarizes the best available scientific evidence on disability and makes recommendations for action in support of the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Development of the Report was sponsored by the World Health Organization and the World Bank. Professor Steinfeld was the primary contributor to the built environment section.  
Dennis Maher has been selected by the John R. Oishei Foundation to be a member of the Oishei 20 Leaders Group. The distinction recognizes emerging leaders of the city of Buffalo who are under the age of 40. He has also been named a winner of the 2011 Real Art Ways STEP UP Competition.  The award recognizes emerging artists residing in New York and New England with a solo exhibition at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT, one of the oldest alternative spaces in the U.S. http://www.realartways.org/visualarts.htm#stepup11 
Jordan Geiger presented a commissioned research and design installation at "Les Modernes," international biennial arts festival in Normandy, July-August 2011. "Emission," was produced with grad students Daniel Barry and Adam Laskowitz of the Situated Technologies Research Group at the University at Buffalo's Architecture Department. Geiger will also be presenting "The ABCs of VLOs," on the architecture and interaction design of Very Large Organizations, at the international workshop, "Territoriality of the Commons," Erkner, Germany, September 2011. 
Christopher Romano, Shadi Nazarian, and Nicholas Bruscia presented a paper titled, "The Living Wall: A Microcosm of Design/Build Practice" at this year's Building Technology Educator's Society Conference in Toronto.   
Joyce Hwang served on the jury for the Animal Architecture Awards Competition (http://www.animalarchitecture.org/animal-architecture-awards/). 
Martha Bohm and Chris Romano led the Sustainable Futures interdisciplinary service learning abroad program from May 24 to August 2 in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Students from four US universities participated, and faculty from UB, University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, and University of Costa Rica taught coursework. The students’ design for renovation of the Monteverde Institute is scheduled to break ground this fall. Concurrently, the program brought practitioners down to Costa Rica for the first of an annual two-week AIA CEU program focused on sustainable design in the tropics. http://www.sustainablefutures2011.org