A total of $20,000 for lighting education grants and awards was presented by The Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education at its annual luncheon held at Lightfair International 2011 in Philadelphia on May 17. Named in honor of the late lighting designer and educator, James L. Nuckolls, The Nuckolls Fund has given $715,000 to advance lighting education in North America since its inception in 1989.
The Nuckolls Fund annually solicits proposals for innovative educational ideas based on advancing the understanding of light in architecture. This year, one $10,000 fellowship grant and two $5,000 student awards were presented to winners by Jeffrey A. Milham, president of The Nuckolls Fund.
Tina Sarawgi, Associate Professor, Department of Interior Architecture at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, was the recipient of the $10,000 Edison Price Fellowship Grant. Prof. Sarawgi has developed e-light interactive teaching modules to demonstrate the effective use of lighting design on software programs during the lighting design process. As part of her grant, she plans to test the modules as a 2011 summer and fall part-time intern with Light Defines Space, a Greensboro lighting design practice. She will also expand the modules by adding strategies to achieve sustainable lighting design solutions.
The $5,000 Jonas Bellovin Scholar Achievement Award went to Leora Radetsky, a Ph.D. candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center, Troy, N.Y. She is conducting research on the health implications of light, and exploring the effects of light on animals used in cancer research to understand the circadian disruption on cancer and other diseases.
June Park, a second year student on the MFA Lighting Design program at Parsons The New School for Design, New York, was the $5,000 Jules Horton International Student Achievement Award. Formerly an economics major in South Korea, she came to the U.S. to study interior design. Her interests shifted to architectural lighting design and she is currently completing the master’s degree program at Parsons.
The luncheon’s guest speaker was Robert Horner, Director of Public Policy for the Illuminating Engineering Society.
Nuckolls Fund president Milham announced the retirement of Gary Gordon from the Board after 22 years of service. “Gary has been immensely valuable to the Fund, including serving as its treasurer, and we are grateful for all he has done,” Milham said. He introduced Paul Gregory, president of Focus Lighting, New York, who has been elected to the Fund’s 12-person Board
Milham concluded the luncheon ceremonies by thanking major contributors for their continued support of The Nuckolls Fund. These include: the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; Jonas Bellovin Memorial Foundation; Barbara Horton and Stephen Lees; Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design; the Designers Lighting Forum of New York; the New York City Section of the Illuminating Engineering Society; Enterprise Lighting Sales; Jack Zukerman, and B-K Lighting + TEKA Illumination.