Architecture Student Receives Fellowship

Kelly Egdorf, fifth-year K-State architecture student from Chaska, Minnesota, has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2009-2010 Tradewell Fellowship.

Sponsored by the Houston-based firm Watkins Hamilton Ross Architects (WHR), the Tradewell Fellowship was created to build the careers of aspiring healthcare architects. The Fellowship includes employment for one year at WHR Architects during which the Fellow works directly with senior medical planners while receiving career guidance and professional experience to develop the skills and expertise to become a professional leader and mentor. Toward this goal, the Tradewell Fellow is involved with clients in early master planning and design with a particular focus on healing environments and collaborative design methods.

Egdorf competed nationally against students from other accredited schools of architecture, including master’s and Ph.D. students from schools with healthcare-focused programs. In her winning application, Egdorf spoke of her initial motivation to focus her career on human-centered design because of a personal hospital experience while she was in high school. Egdorf states that her K-State coursework afforded her not only the foundation but also  ” … a vision for a potential career path in health care architecture and design.” She says, “Academics can only prepare a future professional to a certain level. In contrast, hands-on experiences can challenge an individual at personal and professional levels, and to acquire new insights and skills. The Tradewell Fellowship can offer me an invaluable apprenticeship which will provide numerous opportunities to examine personal and professional strengths and weaknesses, as well as hopes and desires.”

As part of her application, Egdorf submitted work she completed in fifth-year studio. Focusing on the study of a hospice house as a “healing environment,” she developed an abstract and design proposal entitled “Green Re:inserted:  the Role of Nature in the Design of an In-Patient Hospice Room.” Her major professor and studio instructor for this project was Professor Susanne Siepl-Coates.

As a Tradewell Fellow, Egdorf will attend a national healthcare conference as well as many in-house educational presentations. Furthermore, Egdorf will conduct focused research on a self-selected project related to the design of healing environments with the goal to develop a document suitable for publishing. Continued employment may also be offered at the end of the Fellowship year.

Egdorf will receive her master of architecture degree in May. She served an academic internship at Stock & Associates in Seattle, WA, and has also worked at Black and Veatch Corporation in Kansas City. She is an honors and scholarship student, a LEED Accredited Professional, and an active member in the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS). She also participated in the AIAS-sponsored Freedom by Design program, served as a College of Architecture Planning and Design ambassador and mentor, and contributed to Students for Environmental Action. She has also volunteered for CAPD DesignExpo and Telefund.

Egdorf is the second K-State architecture student to be selected for the Tradewell Fellowship, which was inaugurated in 1997. Sarah Henry Fronick (bachelor of architecture, 2003) was chosen in 2003.

For more information, contact:
Susanne Siepl-Coates, 785.532.1122
CAPD@ksu.edu, 785.532.1090