Brown Fellowship Program
Travel Fellowship
Robert S. Brown’ 52 Fellows Program
This travel program was established in 1988 by Mrs. Helen C. Brown in loving memory of her son, Robert S. Brown ʼ52, a 1952 graduate of Rensselaerʼs School of Architecture. The fund is intended to expand the educational opportunities and broaden the cultural base available to Rensselaerʼs architecture students and/or faculty. The program provides travel fellowships to Rensselaer School of Architecture students and faculty.
Goal of the Student Fellowship: The intent of the Brown Fellows Program is to provide a unique opportunity for students within the Rensselaer architecture program to consider architecture as an international discipline with global reach. Through the generous support of our alum Robert S. Brown, students will be able to experience in person the brilliant legacy and traditions of historical and contemporary architecture from around the world that is integral to a proposed research investigation that supports an academic and career trajectory. Offered as a compliment to their education here in the US, this unique travelling fellowship is also intended to provide a multi-cultural experience, in preparation for assuming a leadership position within the discipline in the years ahead.
Past Recipients
2026 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Emily Olmstead, “Adapting to Illumination At The Edge Of Light: Biophilic Approaches to Polar Night in The Circumpolar North”
Aislynn Conway, “Walking as Method: Investigating Slow Architecture on the Camino Portugués”
Acer Van Dis, “Evolving Typologies of Scandinavian Mass Timber”
2026 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Christianna Bennett, “Meta Sudens ‘Sweating Stones,’ Ecology and Image: an Exploration of the Environmental Aesthetics of Italy”
Edwin Liu, “Casting Architecture: Historic British Ceramic Production Techniques as Architectural Framework”
Walaid Sehwail, “Memory Grid”
Matt Burgermaster, “Continuous Constructions”
2025 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Javier Torres, “Photographic Typologies: Swiss Architecture”
Shannon Cosgrove, “What Still Hold: Rediscovering Japan Through Joinery”
Sarah Ishida, “The Intersection of Tradition and Modernity in Japanese Architecture”
2025 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Rhett Russo, “Ceramic Design & The Sand Organ”
Marcus Carter, “Dem Bones”
Arta Yazdanseta, “Embedded Carbon”
Kyle Troyer, “Excessive Informalities: Emerging Material and Spatial Orders”
Adam Petela, “Texture/Place: Documenting the Panots of Barcelona”
2024 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Vernard Ramirez, “A VIRTUOUS JUNCTURE”
Gunnar Thuss, “Reconciling a Nation’s Past Through Its Architecture: The Reconstruction of Post-War Germany”
Helen Worden, “Inhabiting Hostels”
2024 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Nadarajah Narendran, “Understanding 3D Printing for Architectural Lighting”
Leandro Piazzi, “BANAL”
Caleb White, “Disjunctive Figuration: Collage, Bricolage, and Assemblage in Contemporary Urban Anomalies”
2023 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Maddie Mast, “Diving Into Norway”
Gillian Strothenke, “Through the Contemporary Lens: French Art and Architecture”
Madeleine McNairn, “From Homes to Nations: Examining Sustainable Electrification Efforts in the US, Portugal, and Iceland”
2023 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Yael Erel, “Reflecting on sites – in search of site specific light installations”
Ryosuke Imaeda, “Models, Molds, Monocoques”
Michael Stradley, “POINT. LINE. PLANE. COLOR.”
David Bell
2022 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Angelene Applewhite, “Rebuilding a Kingdom at the Foundation: How to Heal the Indigenous Hawaiian Housing Crisis
Through Tradition, Ethnography & Sustainable Design”
Aida Ayuk, “Investigating Perspectives on Livability”
Anish De, “Scars of Strife: Architectural Legacies of the Yugoslav Wars”
2022 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Adam Dayem, “Deviant/Derivative”
Chris Perry, “Rebuilding a Kingdom at the Foundation”
Christianna Bennett, “Tales from the Mire”
Marcus Carter, “Skin Deep – Deep Skin”
2019 Student Fellowship Recipients:
Shelley Warner, ““Understanding the Spatial Poche”
Lindsey Wood, “Scandinavian Aesthetic: Functionality + Minimalism + Beauty”
Robert Nilsen, “Design by Nature”
Madeline Steinmetz, “ARCHipelago”
2019 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Prof. Jonas Braasch, “Examining the Relationship of Internal Diversity and Environment”
Prof. Gabrielle Brainard, “City of Wood: Mass Timber in North America.”
Prof. Yael Erel, “Constructing Reflectors”
Prof. Lonn Combs, “Gaudi’s Casa Mila”
2018 Faculty Fellowship Recipients:
Prof. Rhett Russo, “DUNEJARS: Cow Bone & Nano-Inks Under a Dutch Sky”
Dr. Ning Xiang, “Sound Diffractions in Performance Halls”
Prof. Carla Leitao, “Book | Human | Space”