A senior architecture student recently had a poster accepted to the Architectural Research Centers Consortium International Conference, which will be hosted in New Orleans April 7-10, 2027 by Tulane University and University of Louisiana Lafayette.
Dana Balderrama’s poster, titled Food as Infrastructure: Designing Resilient and Equitable Neighborhoods in Gulfport, Mississippi, is the result of work developed in her fourth-year architecture studio last spring under the guidance of Lopez Barrera.
The studio—funded by award from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine— explored ways to respond and adapt to ongoing struggles of Mississippi Gulf Coast communities. (Read more about the studio: https://www.caad.msstate.edu/news/2025/04/msu-one-eight-universities-receiving-funding-national-academies-sciences-engineering )
“It is exciting to see the project recognized and selected for presentation at an international conference,” Associate Professor Silvina Lopez Barrera said. “This recognition highlights the quality of Danna’s work and demonstrates how design studio research can contribute to broader conversations in architecture and the built environment.”