Meet the 2015 SAH International Travel Grant Recipients

'Deyemi Akande

Fellow, Department of Architecture, University of Lagos, Nigeria

'Deyemi Akande is currently a fellow with the Department of Architecture, University of Lagos, where he teaches art and architecture history. His background is cultural art history. This informs his broad spectrum approach to the study of architectural history. His core research interest is in the architectural history of 19th-century pre-colonial Lagos. He also studies the synthesis of sculpture and architecture. His strong affection for traditional Yoruba sculpture and form drives his appetite for inquiry into the usefulness and presentation of sculpture in African architecture.

He believes that modern African architecture must continue to pursue a visual identity through partnership with sculptural arts. Only with a successful relationship with the arts can modern African architecture properly reposition itself on the world stage.

Akande is also a successful architecture photographer and a strong crusader for the photographic documentation of buildings in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. He has had several exhibitions and showcases in Nigeria and Europe.

Oksana Chabanyuk

Associate Professor, Department of Architectural Environment Design, Kharkiv National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Ukraine

Oksana Chabanyuk received a BA in architecture and an MA in architecture and urban planning from the National University Lviv Polytechnic (Lviv, Ukraine). She graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics at Lviv National University by I.Franko with a specialty in mathematics. In 2004, she defended her PhD (architecture) thesis at National University Lviv Polytechnic with the theme, "Living Environment Regeneration of High-Storied Building Areas of the 1970-80s (on the Example of Lviv)."

Chabanyuk participated in the Visiting Teachers Program 2010 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (London, UK) and international workshops in cooperation between Kharkiv State Technical University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Technische Universität Wien, and National University Lviv Polytechnic. In 2007, she was awarded The Young Scientist in Architecture of Kharkiv Region, Kharkiv.

She is currently registered in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Lisbon as a visiting researcher and is a recipient of the international mobility scholarship, funded by the INFINITY project in the framework of the EU Erasmus Mundus Action 2. Chabanyuk's current research project, Architecture socialization process in the conditions of political systems, explores the divergence of architecture socialization process in the conditions of political systems and their ideologies in East and West European countries in the 20th century, which influenced the architecture, objects, urban environments, and inhabitants.

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Vassilios Colonas

Professor, School of Architecture, University of Thessaly, Greece

Born in Thessaloniki, Vassilios Colonas earned his doctorate from the School of Architecture, Aristotle University, in 1992. He has studied in Paris, in the fields of conservation and restoration of historic buildings and monuments, art history, and museology (University of Paris I), while at the same time working in the French Academy of Architecture. Since 2003, Colonas has been professor of architectural history (19^th-20^th century) in the School of Architecture of the University of Thessaly in Volos.

Colonas has taken part in numerous scientific conferences in Greece and abroad and published studies in Greek and foreign books and periodicals. He has worked in the fields of exhibition organization and museology and was member of numerous European research programs related to the architectural heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea countries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has been a research fellow and lecturer at universities in the USA and Canada, including Princeton University, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, Brown University, McGill University, San Francisco State University, and Columbia University. In 1999, he was awarded the title of the Chevalier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for his work on 19^th-century Italian architects in the Ottoman Empire. His books in English include Italian Architecture in the Dodecanese Islands (1912-1940) (Olkos, 2004) and Greek Architects in the Ottoman Empire, 19^th-20^th Centuries (Olkos, 2006).

Emre Gönlügür

Ishraq Zahra Khan

Lecturer, Department of Architecture, North South University, Bangladesh

Ishraq Zahra Khan is a Lecturer of Architecture at North South University in Bangladesh. She has a BArch from BRAC University in Bangladesh and an MA in histories & theories from the Architectural Association (AA) school in London, where she briefly taught undergraduate history & theory studies. 

Maria Cristina Vereza Lodi

Architectural Preservationist, Rio de Janeiro City Hall, Rio World Heritage Institute; Visiting Professor, PUC-Rio, Brazil

Maria Cristina Vereza Lodi has a degree in architecture and urban planning from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a master of science in historic preservation from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Lodi works for the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, World Heritage Institute as an architectural preservationist and as a visiting professor at PUC-Rio. During the last 20 years, she has been a consultant of institutions in Brazil and abroad, including UNESCO, the Sound and Image Museum of Rio de Janeiro, IPHAN - Brazilian Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage, and World Monuments Fund.

Lodi is a member of the following boards: CAU Board of Architecture and Urbanism, International Council on Monuments and Sites (Brazil Section), Rio de Janeiro Council of Cultural Heritage, Columbia University Alumni, International Council of Museums (Brazil Section), and the Union of Architects.

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Flower Manase

Senior Curator, National Museum of Tanzania, Tanzania

Flower Manase is from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and is currently working as the curator of history and art at the National Museum of Tanzania. She holds a BA in history and archaeology from the University of Dar es Salaam and a Masters (Msc.) on natural resources assessment and management from the Institute of Natural Resources Assessment (IRA) at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Possessing a vast knowledge of historical curation, conservation, and documentation, she has been involved in numerous research projects in the fields of history, archaeology, and the environment. Manase is trained in project management and currently works as the National Museum focal person for the TAHAP project under UNESCO, safeguarding, preserving, and promoting the heritage archives of Tanzania, the African Liberation Heritage in particular.

Manase is a member of international organizations such as ICOM, AFRICOM, Arterial Network, and the American Alliance of Museums. She has also participated in international training and conferences, including the 10^th AAM Annual Meeting and Museum Expo, in Baltimore, Maryland, and the ICCROM course on safeguarding sound and image collections, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Raghad Mofeed

Professor, Department of Architecture, Cairo University, Egypt

Raghad Mofeed graduated with a BS in 1993 and a PhD in 2000 from Cairo University Faculty of Engineering, Egypt. She is currently a professor of architectural theory & criticism at Cairo University. Mofeed was awarded the prize of Excellence in the Post Graduate Studies & Researches from (CAPSCU) Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, and was a corresponding editor of Nexus Network Journal: Architecture and Mathematics.

Mofeed is interested in exploring and analyzing beauty and aesthetic qualities in traditional Islamic architecture, where issues of light, ornament, texture, shadow, skin, etc. are deeply explored through physical three-dimensional models. In addition, she is interested in investigating the representation of architecture in cinema. Her current research focuses on mapping and exploring the image of slums in Egyptian films. Mofeed has published multiple papers related to the previous fields of interest and an Arabic book entitled A Critique of the Egyptian Architecture in New Towns. 

Alexander Molodin

Dean, Novosibirsk State Academy of Architecture and Fine Arts, Russia

Alexander Molodin graduated from Novosibirsk State Academy of Architecture and Fine Arts in 2001 with a degree in architecture. His PhD thesis research was centered on the history of colonial architecture of Siberia and Alaska. Since 2001, he has been conducting research on the history of architecture of Siberia and the USA. Molodin has published over 20 monographs and research articles concerning the history and the theory of architecture and has made several scientific expeditions.

In 2004, he graduated from Open University of Great Britain Business School in Management. In 2008, he successfully defended a PhD dissertation entitled “The Architecture of Russian Settlements on the Territory of North America”.

Currently, Molodin serves as dean of the Novosibirsk State Academy of Architecture and gives lectures at the Academy on the architectural history of Siberia, the USA, and other territories with colonial character of settlement.

Nelly Elizabeth Ramírez Klee

Visiting Professor, Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala

Nelly Elizabeth Ramírez Klee is an architect with experience in historical research and revitalization projects of public space in the historical center of Guatemala City. In 2008, she started working at the Municipality of Guatemala to revitalize urban projects through evaluating and analyzing different factors such as social dynamics, planning, design and construction, landscape, mobility, land use, and natural and cultural heritage. In 2011, she was awarded with a fellowship to pursue a Master of Cultural Heritage and Territory at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá Colombia. There she had the opportunity to develop a management plan for a Colombian community, taking into account local heritage and cultural events. The input of the local community was considered in order to propose innovative research strategies, programs, and projects aimed to provide sustainable development alternatives to the community.

Ramírez Klee is member of the technical committee that works on behalf of Guatemala's City Civic Center to declare it as a World Heritage Site. She is also a member of the editor’s team in the heritage online magazine America Patrimonio, from Chile. Ramírez Klee teaches graduate and postgraduate subjects focused on architecture and urban heritage management at the Universidad Rafael Landivar and is an adviser for local committee groups that defend national heritage sites. Last year, she wrote an article for Bogota’s Universidad Javeriana magazine Apuntes, focusing on heritage sites at risk. She is currently writing a book based on her bachelor's thesis, "Hydraulic System, Pilas and Fountains of Guatemala City (1776-1918)," where she addresses new discoveries and the results of recent research work.

Ranee Maria Leonie Vedamuthu

Professor and Dean, Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University, India

Ranee Vedamuthu is a professor of architecture, currently heading the School of Architecture and Planning (SAP) at Anna University (Chennai, India) as its dean. She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in architecture and a PhD under the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Anna University. Her areas of specialization are history and theoretical studies as well as traditional and vernacular architecture. Her doctoral work focused on the socio-cultural manifestation of dwelling in rural Tamilnadu. Vedamuthu's current area of research is the architecture of the colonial period in the region of Tamilnadu with a focus on the Indo-Saracenic architecture and on urban conservation management of historic urban cores with respect to the city of Chennai (erstwhile Madras) and temple towns of Tamilnadu. She is also interested in the search for identity through ethnicity of communities settled in these historic urban cores, firstly through the creation of architecture and secondly through intangible customs and traditions establishing a collective presence.

Vedamuthu also has worked as a consultant on a number of architectural projects at various institutions. She is one of the principal advisors to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India, for a project funded by the World Bank to set up the National Center for Sustainable Coastal Management at Chennai and also one of the principal advisors to the Ministry of School Education, Govt. of Tamilnadu, to develop an Integrated Knowledge Park at Chennai. 

Tianjie Zhang

Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China