Two Mississippi State senior architecture students are the latest recipients of Aydelott Travel Awards.
Seniors Jane E. Kent of Mandeville, Louisiana, and Mary "Jacquelin" Lee of Madison are each receiving $10,000 to travel domestically this summer to four sites to gather research on a chosen topic.
Kent will visit four iconic historical and contemporary timber structures – the John W. Olver Design Building in Amherst, Massachusetts; Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas; Hangar B at the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon; and Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. With guidance from her mentor Associate Professor Jacob Gines, she will research the relationship between structure, maintenance, landscape, empathy and cultural responses to timber structures.
Lee will investigate the relationship between historic preservation and sustainability and how the cultural and historic significance of a place is a necessary aspect of sustainable practices. She will visit Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts; The Cobb Building in Seattle, Washington; the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, Colorado; and The Armory in Portland, Oregon. Lee's research will be guided by her mentor Professor John Poros.
The $2.4 million endowment—established by late Memphis architect Alfred Lewis Aydelott and his wife Hope Galloway Aydelott—provides an award each year to four architecture students currently enrolled in the professional architecture degree programs at Mississippi State as well as the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Auburn University; and the University of Tennessee.
Due to the COVID-19 public health crisis and current travel restrictions, the Aydelott Foundation granted a change this year from one annual $20,000 award for travel abroad at each institution to two $10,000 awards for domestic travel.
Additionally, MSU senior architecture student Natalie R. Bowers of Cary, North Carolina, is receiving a $5,000 Trussell Travel Award to support her research on ornament in architecture. Bowers plans to look into contrasts between historic and modern forms of ornament. She plans to visit Chicago, Illinois, and San Francisco, California, to study the Robie House, The Sullivan Center, the San Francisco Moma and the San Francisco Federal Building.
The MSU Trussell Travel Award is funded by MSU alumnus Ted T. Porter, principal of Ted Porter Architecture in New York City.
For more information about the Aydelott and Trussell Travel Awards and other fellowships in MSU’s School of Architecture, visit www.caad.msstate.edu/current-students/architecture/fellowships-awards.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.