Service Award

Given in recognition of a specific contribution of service to the field or the organization that advances the field of environmental design research.

Eligibility Criteria

It may be someone outside EDRA who has advanced EDRA's cause through publications, or through the support of knowledge produced by EDRA members.

 

Documentation

Nominations (by self or others) are invited: a one-page summary explaining the reasons for the nomination: 1) brief supporting statements from three EDRA members; and 2) supporting material that illustrates the significance of the service.

 

We encourage you to nominate candidates. Past nominees can be nominated again. Nominators of selected candidates are responsible for producing a power point presentation illustrating the candidate’s achievements, significance, and contributions to environmental design research.

 

Deadline

Please send the completed nomination packet to EDRA Headquarters at headquarters@edra.org with the subject line "Service Award". The deadline to nominate a candidate for the 2013 EDRA Awards is November 9, 2012.

 

If you have questions about the EDRA Awards program, contact:
Kate O'Donnell
Executive Director
kodonnell@edra.org

 

Past Service Awards

2012 Nana Kirk
Nana Kirk Wins 2012 Service Award

Nana Kirk, PhD, Senior Associate, Environmental Vision, is the 2012 recipient of the EDRA Service Award.

 

Nana Kirk is Senior Associate at Environmental Vision in Berkeley, California. Her EDRA membership stretches back several decades, beginning when she was an MLA student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, continuing through her time as PhD candidate at University of California, Berkeley and to the present as a practitioner and academic. She has long been an active member of the organization, serving as the student member of EDRA’s Board of Directors from 1998-1999 and Board Vice-Chair in 1999. She continues to be a contributing member of EDRA’s Cyberspace & Digital Environments Knowledge Network.

 

Since 2008, Nana has been a vital member of EDRA’s web team, managing the EDRA Event Calendar, and sharing responsibility for posting news and information items. Nana has taken on the task of finding, digitizing, and publishing to the web the entire oeuvre of EDRA Proceedings dating back to EDRA1. She has, as of her original nomination, found all but three of them. Nana has cataloged and published old DRNs and, in all, made over 500 PDF documents available to EDRA members online through resources on EDRA’s website. In addition, Nana has been cataloging the E&B journal and conference articles into an online citation index associated with the EDRA website. The index, as of this nomination, consists of over 5,000 references.

 

This output represents several hundred hours of volunteer effort on Nana’s part. Nana’s hard work has provided an incredibly valuable resource to the EDRA membership. These efforts of digital indexing and building a scholarly citation and content resource provides EDRA’s members with long sought access to literature that speaks directly to EDRA’s mission of advancing and disseminating behavior and design research toward improving the understanding of relationships between people and their environments. Without Nana and her commitment, EDRA would not be pioneering living links among our history, societal contributions, design practice, and the exploding realm of social media. This remarkable contribution to the entire breadth of the organization’s membership as well as buttressing the organization’s mission makes Nana Kirk deserving of recognition of the 2012 EDRA Service Award.

2011 Janice Bissell
Janice Bissell receives 2011 EDRA Service Award

Janice Bissell, PhD, Principal, The Practitioner’s Resource, is the 2011 recipient of the EDRA Service Award.

 

Janice Bissell, PhD has been a member of EDRA since 1994 and served the organization as a board member from August 2007 through July of 2010. Janice’s efforts go far beyond the service expected of board members. During the past five years Janice has served the organization through her tireless volunteer efforts to organize, improve and professionalize EDRA’s annual conference.

 

Janice served as Conference Chair of EDRA 38 in Sacramento. As the single individual acting as conference chair, she secured conference sponsors, schedules, tours, plenary speakers, worked with the hotel to ensure that all details were addressed, and generally gave the conference a professional atmosphere. During the next year, Janice continued to work on conference related issues and became the liaison between the EDRA office and the Veracruz Conference Chair and committee for EDRA39. In preparation for the EDRA 40 conference, Janice continued to act as liaison between the EDRA office and the Conference Committee, working on improving conference quality. It is likely that EDRA would not have been able to successfully carry on with the EDRA 41 conference in Washington DC without Janice’s critical involvement.

 

It is a testament to Janice’s commitment and service to EDRA that over the past five years she acted in her role as conference liaison/event organizer in a volunteer capacity. She committed to increasing the professionalism of EDRA’s main public event. She stepped in to assist local conference chairs and depending on the abilities of each did whatever was needed to ensure that the annual conference was worry-free for EDRA members.

 

Additionally, Janice’s presence on the board strengthened design practitioner representation within EDRA. This representation led to new and revised EDRA policies and increased revenues from additional sponsorships and membership. Efforts with the NAED and other initiatives demonstrated a clear and unwavering vision to bridge gulfs among research, practice, and policy.

 

Much of Janice’s efforts were clearly driven by a sincere love for EDRA and what it represents. Such devotion was evident when she assumed responsibility over the EDRA business office following Janet Singer’s passing. Janice shouldered several early morning and late nights. During these odd hours she not only assumed conference organization responsibilities, but reviewed boxes of paperwork to prepare EDRA for a transition to its current Washington, D.C., office.

 

Janice’s stellar track record in conference organization and management and her passion for EDRA as an organization makes her a unique and outstanding member of this organization. Janice’s commitment to EDRA and its mission makes her the recipient of the 2011 EDRA Service Award.

2010 Janet Crum Singer
Janet Crum Singer Receives 2010 EDRA Service Award

Janet Crum Singer, recipient of the 2010 EDRA Service award, served as EDRA’s administrative and logistical anchor for more than 15 years. She joined EDRA in 1995 as business office manager after serving several years as EDRA’s external auditor. Over the years Janet’s role, along with her title, grew as she became more and more integral to the organization’s everyday operations and conference planning. Janet’s calm demeanor and pinpoint planning has been central to the past 15 EDRA Conferences, its various ink and electronic publications, and its award projects, including the EDRA Places Award that recently evolved into the Great Places Awards hosted by EDRA and Metropolis Magazine.

 

Although Janet’s position as Executive Director was officially a part-time position, Janet’s dedication to EDRA went well beyond part-time hours. Janet fashioned a fulltime operating office that handled the everyday operations and logistics of our international professional organization, as well as handling international EDRA chapters and the annual EDRA conference. Janet continued to provide valuable service to the organization through her own belief in the value of EDRA’s contributions. She continually found ways to make things happen for the organization, even when EDRA’s resources lagged behind its desires.

 

The nomination to honor Janet with this award received overwhelming support when it appeared during the 2009-2010 call for nominees. Janet was humbled (and simultaneously justly proud) when she received news of the EDRA board’s September decision to recognize her dedicated efforts by awarding her one of the organization’s highest honors.

 

It is with great sadness for the EDRA board, the nominating committee, and the EDRA membership that we will not be able to honor Janet Crum Singer in person during the EDRA41 conference in Washington DC. In addition to handling the workings of EDRA, Janet had recently been battling cancer. Janet Crum Singer passed away on April 17, 2010 while surrounded by her loving family.

 

EDRA is proud to honor the service, dedication, and friendship that Janet gave to us all as we bestow the 2010 Service Award in memory of all that she contributed to our organization. Janet served to weave us together across oceans and deserts, countries and languages, disciplines and research interests. Often it was her behind-the-scenes work that allowed us to have the opportunity to meet, learn, share, exchange and grow professionally, academically, and personally at our yearly gatherings. There is not a single EDRA member who will not remember her welcoming smile and generous nature. It is our hope that while Janet will no longer be able to be with us at our annual gatherings that we, as EDRA members, will be able to carry her welcoming spirit and dedicated nature with us as we continue to work towards improving the world in which we live.

2009 Daniel Mittleman
2009 EDRA Service Award Winner: Daniel Mittleman

The 2009 EDRA Service Award was given to Daniel Mittleman, Ph.D. at EDRA’s 40th annual conference on May 30, 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri. As an active member of EDRA since 1991, he has served in a variety of capacities including webmaster and board member for the past six years.  As a sustaining member of the organization, he has helped promote the organization through his tireless service.  In particular, his leadership and service was exemplified as 2008 Chair of the Board where he provided critical guidance with selflessness, insight and wisdom as the Board navigated its way through a strategic planning process to take the organization into the 21st century.

 

Danny's dedication and outstanding service to EDRA is especially exemplified in his work on the website. Throughout his 17 years as an EDRA member, he has voluntarily served as webmaster and was instrumental in the development of a new website. The new site better supports connections and contact between members; gives members access to and control of their personal information; makes networks more accessible; provides places for a bookstore and library; serves as a bulletin board for the organization, and has been a fundamental resource for promoting and communicating about the annual conference. In addition, the web site is easier to navigate, more cost efficient to operate, and more attractive and professional looking. Through Danny’s efforts and devotion, EDRA’s visibility on the internet and traffic on the web site has increased significantly.

 

Through his dedication and service, Danny has had a positive and lasting impact on EDRA. His ideas, vision, and actions have been instrumental in helping to bring EDRA into the 21st century in ways that benefit our membership and our community. He has truly gone beyond the call of duty. It is with great pleasure that the Environmental Design Research Association recognizes him with the 2009 EDRA Service Award.

 

Dr. Mittleman is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago where he teaches coursework in Systems Analysis & Design, Social Issues of IT, and Virtual Collaboration. He holds an AB and MBA from Washington University (St. Louis) and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.