Virtual CRP Awards & Graduation Ceremony

Student Work Gallery

Awards

The Department of City and Regional Planning awards annual prizes to students in the various programs within the department. The following awards will be presented:

Addison G. Crowley (B.L.Arch. '38) Prize

The Addison G. Crowley Prize provides an annual prize to be awarded by the faculty for the best presentation of any junior design designated by the said faculty in the field of regional planning.

• Gianni Valenti (B.S. URS '21)

American Institute of Certified Planners Outstanding Student Award

The American Institute of Certified Planners Outstanding Student Award recognizes outstanding attainment in the study of planning by a student who is being graduated from an accredited program. The criteria gives priority to the quality of work in the student’s courses in planning and to the promise of success as a professional planner.

• Brian Toy (M.R.P. '21)

Arch R. Winter Graduate Fellowship

The Arch Winter Graduate Fellowship provides financial assistant to deserving graduate students towards university diplomas in city and regional planning.

• Natalie Deduck (M.R.P. '22)
• Austin Ford (M.R.P. '22)
• Petros Kwan (M.R.P. '22)
• Jonathan Robison (M.R.P. '22)

Department of City and Regional Planning Graduate Community Service Award

The Department of City and Regional Planning Graduate Community Service Award is awarded to socially conscious and active students who, through exemplary community service within and outside the University, significantly contributed to the Department.

• Harman Singh Dhodi (M.R.P. '21)
• Carlos Lopez Ortiz (M.R.P. '21)
• Anshul Mishra (M.R.P. '21)
• Shriya Rangarajan (Ph.D. RS '24)
• Hannah Wilson (M.R.P. '21)

John Reps Pioneer Award

The John Reps Planning Pioneer Research Fellowship honors the living legacy of John Reps, renowned historian of urban planning and an authority on American urban iconography. A graduate, professor, and former chair of CRP, Professor Reps was designated a Planning Pioneer by the American Planning Association in 1996. This research fellowship supports students on issues related to environmental governance and planning, particularly as they relate to climate change, disaster mitigation, water management, environmental justice, land-use planning, and public policy. Students in the department at the undergraduate, master's, or doctoral levels undertaking thesis, exit project, dissertation research, or other research relevant to their studies may apply. Research funds may be applied towards the cost of travel, data acquisition, software, and data analysis, or support for field partners either in the U.S. or abroad.

• Divya Phani Lohita Turlapati (M.R.P. '22)

John W. and Constance P. Reps Summer Research Award

The John W. And Constance P. Reps Research Award honors the long association of Professor John Reps and his wife Constance with Cornell University’s Department of City and Regional Planning. The award is conferred annually to help a graduate student in the department explore research as a career path. The student and a faculty member are to collaborate on a research project over the summer, and the hope is that this partnership will blossom into a continuing relationship. The student shall give a presentation about the project and its outcomes at the end of the summer. CRP graduate students who are approaching the end of their first year of graduate studies are eligible.

• Paula Diaz (M.R.P. '22)
• Connor Rigney (M.R.P. '22)

John W. Reps Award

The John W. Reps Award was established in 1987, in honor of Professor Reps, first chairperson of the Department of City and Regional Planning and well-known author of several books on the history of American urban development. It is given to a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning who has demonstrated superior academic excellence.

• Jing Cheng (M.A. HPP '21)
• Gretchen Worth (M.A. HPP '20)

Kermit C. Parsons and Janice I. Parsons Scholarship

The Kermit C. Parsons and Janice I. Parsons Scholarship was established in 2001 to support students in the URS, M.R.P., M.A. HPP, and real estate programs. This scholarship — one at the undergraduate and the second at the graduate level — recognizes the active role of Professor and Dean Kermit C. Parsons in working with all four groups of students.

• Hannah Faulwell (B.S. URS '22)
• Eunah Jung (Ph.D. CRP '25)
• Lin Khant Oo (B.S. URS '21)

Peter B. Andrews Memorial Thesis Prize

The Peter B. Andrews Memorial Thesis Prize is awarded for the best thesis prepared for the degree of Master of Regional Planning. The prize was established by Mrs. Peter B. Andrews and Dr. George C. Andrews in memory of Peter B. Andrews (B.Arch '55, M.R.P. '57).

• Prakriti Shukla (M.R.P. '20)

Portman Family Graduate Student Award

The Portman Family Graduate Award was established in 1995 for planning students whose work emphasizes the physical aspects of planning. This gift was given in recognition of the contributions which Cornell, the college, and the Department of City and Regional Planning made to the Portman family and their careers, and to encourage focus on the physical and environmental aspects of planning.

• Waishan Qiu (Ph.D. RS '25)
• Ziyan Xu (M.R.P. '22)

Robert P. Liversidge III Memorial Book Award

The Robert P. Liversidge III Memorial Book Award was established in 2003 in memory of Robert P. Liversidge III. The award goes to a graduating MRP student with environmental interests who exemplifies qualities such as gentleness, whimsy, love of people and ideas; and is articulate and a good writer.

• Samuel Coons (B.S. URS '17, M.R.P./M.L.A. '21)

Thomas W. Mackesey Award

The Thomas W. Mackesey Prize is awarded in memory of the former Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning. It is bestowed on a master's candidate for the degree in City and Regional Planning who has demonstrated unusual competence in academic work or who, by qualities of personality or leadership, has significantly contributed to the intellectual advancement of fellow students.

• Alekhya Mukkavilli (M.R.P. '21)

Urban and Regional Studies Academic Achievement Award

The Urban and Regional Studies Academic Achievement Award for the undergraduate program is presented to the individual who has achieved the highest academic average after seven semesters at Cornell. The award is in the form of a book and certificate.

• Maddie Collins (B.S. URS '21)
• Yuefu Liu (B.S. URS '21)

Urban and Regional Studies Community Service Award

The Urban and Regional Studies Community Service Award is given to undergraduate students, who have demonstrated an active commitment to community service.

• Kellen Cooks (B.S. URS '23)
• Lin Khant Oo (B.S. URS '21)
• Thomas Petluck (B.S. URS '23)
• Ayana Smith (B.S. URS '23)

The Michael Rapuano Award

This prize rotates among the three departments. It is awarded to a student graduating with either an undergraduate or graduate degree in architecture, landscape architecture, painting, sculpture, or planning who has performed work in any of these fields that is judged to be most outstanding as characterized by 'distinction in design.'

• Tim Dehm (M.R.P./M.L.A. '21)

New York Upstate Chapter APA Student Project Award

Recognizes student work presented in the CRP 5850 Applied Site Planning and Urban Design special topics course taught in the spring 2020 semester by co-instructors Mitch Glass and Jeffrey Chusid.

• Christopher Chutz (M.R.P. '21)
• Samuel Coons (B.S. URS '17, M.R.P./M.L.A. '21)
• Anthea Fernandes (M.R.P. '21)
• Kate Flaherty (M.R.P./M.L.A. '22)
• Alexander Goddard (B.A. '21)
• Xinyu He (M.R.P. '21)
• Hailey Morey (M.R.P. '20)
• Michael O'Key (M.R.P. '21)
• Rewa Phansalkar (M.R.P. '21)
• Hassan Saleem (B.S. URS '20)
• Gianni Valenti (B.S. URS '21)
• Hannah Wilson (M.R.P. '21)
• Xiaotong Yang (M.R.P. '21)
• Sauvanithi Yupho (M.R.P. '20), GTRS

Class of 2021 Graduates

Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Studies

• Nathaniel Lin Abel**
• Erik Bucio
• Maddie Ilyse Collins
• Vincent DiPietra
• Douglas Thomas Griffin
• Ashley Elizabeth Halloran
• Hannah Sanaiya Harvey
• Ashlyn Courtney Koh
• Tae Seo Lee**
• Savanna Lim**
• Yiran Liu**
• Yuefu Liu
• Sean Tomas O'Connell
• Lin Khant Oo
• Quinn Kellen Otto-Moudry
• Nathan D. Powell
• Lilah Gulick Rosenfield**
• Griffin Edward Smuts
• Jacob Taylor Soley*
• Tianhui Wang
• Robert De Zhang
• Chi Zhang

Master of Regional Planning

• Christopher Chutz
• Samuel Howard Coons (B.S. URS '17)***
• Timothy Bruce Dehm***
• Jenna DeRario
• Harman Singh Dhodi
• Anthea Fernandes
• Anjali Ruth Fisher
• Chunan Gao
• Xiaojun Ge
• Jessica Ann Geary
• Yu Gu
• Nadine Viktoria Lazcanotegui Gutierrez
• Yuan Jian
• Quinn Thomas Kelly (B.S. URS '14)
• Kevin Han Kim***
• Kin Long Lei
• Carlos Arturo Lopez Ortiz
• Tiolora Retta Lumbantoruan
• Anshul Mishra
• Alekhya Mukkavilli
• Anthony Nash
• Mediatrich Triani Novianingsih
• Michael Deshaun O'Key
• Kathryn Oran
• Jeanette Petti (B.S. URS '18)***
• Rewa Phansalkar
• Kania Pradipta
• Cam Phung Quach
• Matthew Louis Reyes
• Theofilia Gracella Sahertian
• Karim Mohamed Khairy Shaltout
• Prakriti Shukla*
• Connor Reed Smith
• Zixiao Tang
• Brian Joshua Toy
• Robyn Wardell
• Caroline Leigh Weston
• Hannah Tyler Wilson
• Xiaotong Yang
• Jose Anres Zambrano
• Yuqing Zhang

Master of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning

• Jing Cheng
• Gretchen Worth

Master of Science in Regional Science

• Muhammad Hazmi Ash Shidqi
• Luming Tan
• Qing Yang
• Jiarui Zheng

Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning

• Kadir Basboga
• Lu Liao
• Andy Micklow
• Fauzul (Rizal) Sutikno*

Ph.D. in Regional Science

• Karina Acosta Ordonez
• Ji-Won Park

University Commencement

University Commencement Ceremonies

The Office of Commencement will host a series of in-person ceremonies for May '21, December '20, and August '20 graduates on Saturday, May 29, 2021 in Schoellkopf Stadium. In accordance with the most recent New York State COVID-19 guidelines, graduates will be provided two non-transferrable ceremony tickets for guests to observe the ceremony at the stadium. Graduates will be joined by Cornell President Martha Pollack and faculty of the colleges and schools listed in each respective ceremony.

If the graduating student is affiliated with other colleges, they may be participating in the ceremonies following the first event:

Schedule for University Commencement Ceremonies

Saturday, May 29th Ceremonies

1st Ceremony, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

• Cornell Graduate School
  • M.R.P., M.A., M.S., & Ph.D. graduates
• College of Veterinary Medicine
• College of Human Ecology

2nd Ceremony, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

• Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
• Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
• School of Hotel Administration
• College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Sunday, May 30th Ceremonies

1st Ceremony, 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

• College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
  • B.S. URS graduates
• College of Arts and Sciences

2nd Ceremony, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

• School of Industrial and Labor Relations
• College of Engineering

The Commencement ceremonies will be live-streamed for guests to view. Recordings will also be made available through the CornellCast page following Commencement.

Please note that information on Commencement is frequently updating as more guidance from the university and New York State are revised. For more information about the university-wide commencement ceremonies, view the Office of Commencement Events page.

In Memoriam

John Reps (M.R.P. '47), Professor Emeritus, 1921-2020

Alumnus, professor emeritus, and former department chair John Reps, whose commitment to the Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP) spanned more than 70 years, passed away at home on Thursday, November 12, just shy of his 99th birthday. Reps was fascinated by—and an expert on—planning history and the wide range of urban planning representations that drive both planning research and the methodologies of practice. His seminal 1965 book, The Making of Urban America (Princeton University Press), was followed by several more books exploring the origin and subsequent growth of towns and cities in the southeast and west in great detail. His 1980 book titled Cities of the American West received the 1980 Beveridge Award from the American Historical Association for the year's best book on American History. Reps wrote 13 other books, including Canberra 1912: Plans and Planners of The Australian Capital Competition that offered a unique look at largely unseen proposals for the design and development of the city—these in addition to at least a half-dozen studies of 19th-century prints of American city plans.

Kirby Edmonds ('73, '99), Visiting Lecturer, 1951-2020

Kirby Edmonds ('73 '99), a visiting lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning, passed away on August 22. Born in 1951, Edmonds was an important community leader in Ithaca as well as a longtime visiting lecturer in CRP. He will be remembered as a voice for justice and change among the scores of people he taught and worked with. Recently, Edmonds was a managing partner for Training for Change (TFC) Associates, an Ithaca-based training and consulting firm founded in 1982. He was a senior fellow and program coordinator for the Dorothy Cotton Institute, a project of the Center for Transformative Action in Ithaca. He also worked as the network manager for the Building Bridges Initiatives, a county-wide project working for social justice and an ecologically sound local economy. 

Dr. Joseph Rukus (M.R.P. '09), 1966-2020

Dr. Joseph Rukus, an alumnus of the master of regional planning program, passed away on December 28th, 2020. As an associate professor at Arkansas State University in the Department of Criminology, Dr. Rukus was a pioneer in the fields of planning and criminal justice, championing new policy approaches to intergenerational planning, prisoner re-entry in the community, and attention to LGBTQ+ issues. He served as faculty advisor to the first Gay-Straight Alliance at Arkansas State, leading to the university providing protections for gender identity in its Equal Opportunities for All (EOC) policy in 2016. As a planning student at Cornell, he worked with Professor Mildred Warner and Professor Emeritus William Goldsmith where his thesis examined economic equity metrics to recommend policies that reduce recidivism in San Francisco. Throughout his life, Dr. Rukus shared his passion for community development and criminal justice reform. 

Excerpts on John Reps and Kirby Edmonds provided by Patti Witten

The Department of City and Regional Planning would also like to recognize the following individuals of loved ones of students, faculty, and staff that have passed away during these difficult times:

George Gulick, grandfather of Lilah Rosenfield (B.S. URS '21)

Alfredo Ortiz, grandfather of Carlos Lopez (M.R.P. '21)

"A tireless worker who taught me the value of discipline and hard work."

- Carlos Lopez

Yohanna Rizk, friend of Tiolora Lumbantoruan (M.R.P. '21)

Rissao Shimada, great uncle of Kevin Kim (M.R.P./M.L.A. '21)

Naek L Tobing, grandfather of Tiolora Lumbantoruan (M.R.P. '21)