PhD in the Constructed Environment Students Awarded Numerous UVA Grants and Fellowships
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Students in the University of Virginia School of Architecture’s PhD program in the Constructed Environment have received competitive fellowships and research support through a range of UVA initiatives. These awards recognize outstanding interdisciplinary research and empower students to advance inquiry into a broad span of dissertation topics, including the effects of biophilic design on mental health, the socio-spatial dimensions of disaster recovery, mycelium-based living building materials, and the enduring influence of the transatlantic slave trade on urban planning.
Congratulations to the following recipients:
Shaheen Alikhan
Shaheen Alikhan has received both a 2025 Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Research Fellowship and a Dumas Malone Graduate Research Fellowship from UVA's Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs, adding to her Fall 2024 Graduate Global Research Grant from UVA’s Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation (CGII). Her dissertation, Waterfronts of the Slave Trade: Littoral Landscapes of the Long Eighteenth Century, examines how the transatlantic African slave trade influenced the urban plan and shorelines of Atlantic port cities. Alikhan’s work blends spatial analysis with historical inquiry, shedding light on how the forced movement of people across oceans left enduring imprints on the built environment.
Ipsita Datta
Ipsita Datta’s research centers on mycelium-based Living Building Materials and their integration with construction and agricultural waste through robotic additive manufacturing. Her dissertation investigates how living systems—particularly fungal networks—can interface with excavated soil and inert materials to produce structurally viable, environmentally responsive components for construction.
The research poses a central question: Can living organisms be incorporated into fabrication processes to produce scalable, load-bearing systems that are both ecologically responsive and materially efficient? Through a series of controlled experiments testing growth dynamics, material strength, and environmental response, Datta is contributing to the field of Engineered Living Materials with an architecture-centered inquiry into their application. Her work uses robotic 3D printing to precisely explore biological-material interactions and define parameters for modular or continuous construction.
Datta was awarded a Spring 2025 Graduate Global Research Grant from CGII and a 2025 AHSS Summer Research Fellowship, enabling her to continue advancing research into material ecologies and bio-integrated design.
Clara Xavier Marques
Clara Xavier Marques received a 2025 Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Research Fellowship from UVA’s Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs. Her dissertation explores the social, spatial, and institutional dynamics of recovery and reconstruction after environmental disasters, focusing on community responses to the 2015 Fundão and 2019 Córrego do Feijão tailings dam collapses in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The AHSS fellowship will support exploratory fieldwork in the cities of Mariana and Brumadinho, including archival research, site observation, and collaboration with local leaders and community organizations. “The fellowship will be fundamental to advancing my dissertation’s empirical and conceptual development,” Marques notes, as it will help refine her methods, clarify her research questions, and foster key partnerships.
In Fall 2024, Marques also received a Graduate Global Research Grant from UVA’s CGII, which supported her participation in the 2024 Conference of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in Seattle. There, she presented a section of her literature review on Environmental Restorative Justice, a key component of her dissertation's theoretical foundation.
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Julianna Mollica
Julianna Mollica has been awarded the 2025 Presidential Fellowship in Collaborative Neuroscience from the University’s Office of Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs and the UVA Brain Institute. The fellowship provides $38,000 in support for one year, covering living expenses, tuition, fees, and health insurance.
Mollica’s research investigates how biophilic design—design that connects people with nature—can reduce stress and support mental health in residential environments. Her work compares the effectiveness of “real” nature (such as green views through windows) with “analogous” or symbolic forms of nature (such as biomimetic patterns), aiming to generate empirical data that informs evidence-based, mental health-promoting affordable housing design.
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The achievements of Alikhan, Datta, Marques, and Mollica reflect the interdisciplinary strength and scholarly relevance of the PhD in the Constructed Environment program. By combining architecture, neuroscience, urban planning, environmental justice, and material innovation, these students are expanding the boundaries of design research and contributing to more resilient, equitable, and responsive environments. We applaud their accomplishments and look forward to the future impact of their work.
