UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State College of Arts and Architecture graduate students Mahsa Adib, a doctoral student in architecture with a focus on landscape architecture, and Glynnis Reed-Conway, a doctoral student in the dual-title art education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program, have each been recognized with the University’s Alumni Association Dissertation Award.
Adib and Reed-Conway are among 13 doctoral candidates University-wide to receive the award, which is considered to be among the most prestigious available to Penn State graduate students and recognizes outstanding achievement in scholarship and professional accomplishment.
The Alumni Association Dissertation Award provides funding and recognition to outstanding full-time doctoral students whose dissertations will have the greatest impact. In addition, students must demonstrate outstanding academic and personal potential in areas of extracurricular and professional activities.
Mahsa Adib
As a researcher in the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture’s Stormwater Living Lab, Adib’s work examines public intentions to adopt Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI), a decentralized approach using natural elements to manage excessive stormwater runoff.
By addressing gaps in public education, community engagement and implementation, her research explores social and psychological drivers influencing GSI adoption. With the goal of advancing equitable climate resilience, Adib’s research helps municipalities design interventions that empower communities, reduce flooding risks and promote environmental justice while fostering climate-adaptive urban landscapes.
This interdisciplinary approach provides key insights into barriers and motivators shaping adoption behaviors, supporting policymakers, educators and sustainability professionals in designing equitable and effective urban water solutions. By fostering informed, engaged communities, the research aims to advances climate resilience, reduces flooding risks and promotes environmental justice, contributing to the creation of more sustainable, inclusive urban landscapes.
“Receiving this award is an honor and validation of the years of work I have dedicated to understanding how we can make cities more resilient through inclusive and participatory approaches,” Adib said. “Penn State has been instrumental in shaping my research journey, and the dissertation process has been intense but deeply rewarding. It has challenged me to think across disciplines, combining environmental psychology, policy and landscape planning, and to stay grounded in real-world applications.”
Glynnis Reed-Conway
As a researcher, Reed-Conway examines how her artworks and writings from 1993 to 2023 reveal creative processes of wayfinding and worlding toward healing and self-recovery after experiencing sexual trauma. Using the Black feminist theory, Conjure Feminism, as a framework for theoretical analysis, she explores the connection of Black women's epistemologies to African derived practices of spirituality, religion, the supernatural and community.
Reed-Conway analyzes residual effects of sexual trauma seen in her artworks and poetry in relation to work by other African Diaspora artists. She situates her research within a broader history of feminist advocacy for the inclusion of diverse perspectives in the arts.
Her arts-based critical autoethnography, “Looking into the Mirrors of Art: An Arts-Based Critical Autoethnography of Healing and Self-Recovery Through Conjure Feminist Worlding and Wayfinding,” explores the creative navigation of socio-political contexts that threaten the safety, health and well-being of Black women and girls.
The dissertation contributes to scholarship on trauma, healing and the arts, demonstrating that creative expression can support the navigation of adversity and can also be engaged as a collective practice for transformation and resistance.
“I am deeply honored to be a recipient of the Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award,” Reed-Conway said. “My time at Penn State has been challenging, yet highly rewarding. I have learned so much from the scholars and students with whom I have worked. My work as a Ph.D. student at Penn State has pushed me to grow and I am thankful for the experience.”
Adib and Reed-Conway will be recognized at a special lunch on April 21. The annual recognition awards are sponsored by the Office of the President and administered by the J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School.