UB Architecture Student Named Tradewell Fellow in Medical Planning

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Houston-based architecture and interior design firm of Watkins Hamilton Ross (WHR) has announced that Shouvik Chakaborty, a Bombay native and graduate student in architecture in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, has received the firm's prestigious 2005-06 Tradewell Fellowship in Medical Planning.

The nationally recognized firm selects one nominee each year from a national applicant pool to spend a fellowship year with the firm and to continue employment with it after completing the program.

During his fellowship year, Chakaborty will work with senior medical designers and planners on firm projects, prepare a special project or article suitable for publication on a medical topic, and assist and participate in a spring-semester master's-level course on health facilities design for the University of Houston Master of Healthcare Administration program. He also will review and summarize health-design research articles and publications for senior designers and planners, assist in preparing articles, speeches and presentations, and assist in the selection of the 2006-07 Tradewell Fellow.

WHR is a full-service architecture and design firm with a particular focus on health care, higher education and research facilities design. It has a national reputation for the quality of its designs for evidence-based healing environments, and is known for its commitment to provide design services for mission-based clients, such as universities and centers for laboratory research.

The Tradewell Fellowship is named for the late Gary Tradewell, AIA, the firm's former vice president and medical planner. Among the firm's recent projects are Christus St. Michael Health Care Center in Texarkana, Texas; Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Lawton, Okla.; Memorial Hermann Hospital -- Hermann Pavilion, Houston, Texas, and many other health facilities in Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Jersey and Utah

Chakaborty's mentors at UB are Edward Steinfeld, professor of architecture and adjunct professor of rehabilitation sciences, and Gary Scott Danford, associate professor of environmental psychology, both in the UB School of Architecture and Planning and both deeply involved in the promotion of universal design.