Farhana Ferdous Author & Editor

Farhana Ferdous is an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at Howard University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Sydney, Australia, and conducted postdoctoral research in health care architecture at the University of Kansas (KU). She was a lecturer and Global Urbanism Faculty Fellow in the School of Architecture & Design at KU. She is an educator, designer, and scholar whose teaching and research career spans the continents of Asia, Australia, and North America. She is known globally for her scholarly contributions on the topics of the design of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias care facilities, healthy urbanism and environmental design for the elderly, and health and well-being in the built and urban settings. She has published widely on urban and environmental design, environmental psychology, and neighborhood walkability for the aging population. Her research has been supported by many prestigious grants and awards such as the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Fellowship, Grantmakers in Aging (GIA) Fellowship, Endeavour Postgraduate Award, Toyota Foundation Grant, Academy of Architecture Health Foundation (AAHF), KU-Alzheimer’s Disease Center Pilot Award, and KU Strategic Initiative Grant.

Bryan Bell founded the nonprofit organization Design Corps in 1991 with the mission "to provide the benefits of design for the 98 percent without architects." His current work includes research on the field of public interest design and the SEED Network, which he co-founded. He has co-published four books in this field, has organized 33 Public Interest Design Institute and 18 Structures for Inclusion international conferences. His work has been supported by the Latrobe Prize of the Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and he has received 30 grants including seven from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was awarded a National AIA Award and was a National Design Award finalist. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Bell is an associate professor at the School of Architecture, NC State University; holds degrees from Princeton and Yale Universities; and was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.