Sam Fox School faculty projects secure more than $250,000 in research funding
2025-07-02 • Caitlin Custer
Faculty from the Sam Fox School have been awarded more than $250,000 in research funding through WashU initiatives for new and ongoing projects. Their design work touches on a wide array of subject areas, from green infrastructure and logistics to medical studies related to heart failure and dementia.
WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity granted three awards to Sam Fox School faculty. Assistant Professor Chris Dingwall is co-principal investigator for “Black Paper: Book Arts and Print Culture in the African Diaspora,” which explores the formations of Black print culture in the U.S. and Africa through collections in WashU Libraries. Seth Denizen, assistant professor in landscape architecture, has received a seed grant for an ethnographic study on the Metropolitan Sewer District’s Project Clear, using soil as a starting point to develop more equitable solutions to the region’s wastewater management system. Lecturer Bomin Kim’s work, “Logistics Urbanism,” examines how warehouse expansion along the I-55 corridor and in disinvested St. Louis neighborhoods results in financial extractivism that disproportionately burdens marginalized communities.
WashU has awarded additional funding to several projects through Here & Next seed funding, part of the university’s strategic plan.
Four teams involving Sam Fox School faculty received Ignite Grants, aimed at giving new projects a strong start to develop tools and data that will help secure subsequent funding. In the Public & Global Health category, Associate Professor Penina Acayo Laker is participating in a design case study related to heart failure polypills. In the Environmental Research category, Kim, who earned her doctorate in sustainable urbanism at the Sam Fox School, is also investigating how contextual factors of a neighborhood impact symptoms in people with dementia. Associate Professor Heidi Aronson Kolk is part of a team exploring the historic WWII-era bunkers at Tyson Research Center in Eureka, Mo., and Associate Professor Catalina Freixas is part of a team developing an evidence-based toolkit to conduct research on climate resilience and health impacts in affordable housing.
Two faculty teams also received Here & Next Spark Grants which provide teams planning resources to map larger research strategies. Freixas’ project also received a Spark Grant, as did Professor Bruce Lindsey’s work bringing humanities scholars and designers together in dialogue on segregation, which created initiatives The Divided City and The Engaged City.