Taubman College “Research on the City” 2012 Faculty Research Grants Announced, Inaugural Program

Taubman College “Research on the City” 2012 Faculty Research Grants Announced, Inaugural Program 

Taubman College “Research on the City” is an inaugural pilot program to incentivize interdisciplinary research on urban topics. Today cities and their metropolitan regions face some of the greatest challenges of our time, among others rapid growth or depopulation, environmental challenges and economic instability. To tackle these issues requires the collaboration of more than one discipline. In this initial year, the grant program is limited to research projects that focus on the city of Detroit. In the future, we anticipate grants will be available for research on cities world-wide.

As we strive to fulfill the aim of working across disciplines to solve pressing urban problems, faculty were required to collaborate and work in interdisciplinary teams. At least one team member is from a college or school at the University of Michigan other than Taubman College.

The 2012 “Research on the City” Faculty Research Grant projects awarded, with affiliated Taubman College and interdisciplinary faculty, are:

• “A Dozen Playgrounds” Jennifer Maigret, Maria Arquero, R. Charles Dershimer (School of Education)
• “Atlas of Love and Hate: Detroit Geographies” Steven Mankouche, Andrew Herscher, Andrew Thompson (School of Art & Design)
• “Geographies of Trash” El Hadi Jazairy, Rania Ghosn, Sangyun Lee (School of Natural Resources and Environment)
• “Imaging Detroit” Anya Sirota, Mireille Roddier, Steven Christensen (UCLA, Department of Architecture and Urban Design), Lada Adamic (School of Information & Center for the Study of Complex Systems), Youna Kwak (New York University, Department of French)
• “Re: Tool-Kit for Detroit” Heidi Beebe, Julia McMorrough, John Marshall (School of Art & Design)

Grant submissions were anonymously evaluated by a distinguished jury from outside the college:

• Malik Goodwin (B.S.’97, M.Arch./M.U.P.’02), Vice President- Project Management, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation; Taubman College Alumni Society Board of Governors member
• Maria Nicanor, Assistant Curator of Architecture, Guggenheim; co-curator, BMW Guggenheim Lab
• Andrew Zago, Architect and Founder, Zago Architecture

A presentation of the work to the college-at-large and an exhibition will be required of all award recipients. Projects must be completed by November 1, 2012.

The college thanks Cynthia (A.B.’;83 LSA), and Alan Berkshire (B.S.’;82) for making the program possible through their generosity.