Christina Chi Zhang has been named the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2023-24 by the Syracuse School of Architecture. Zhang, who is currently completing the final year of her master of architecture degree program at the Yale School of Architecture, will use the fellowship to explore the limits and implications of photography, cartography, drawing, and virtual reality.

During the 2023-24 academic year, Zhang will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives at the Syracuse School of Architecture. The studio and electives will center on her research project “Scales of Healing in Post-Traumatic Landscapes,” exploring the tools of representation used to document, analyze, and represent post-traumatic landscapes at different scales.

During the fellowship, Zhang also plans to extend the geographical focus of her previous research in order to create a broader conversation with students about ongoing wars and conflicts. Her research will culminate in the form of an exhibition and interdisciplinary symposium exploring issues of memory, reconstruction, and resilience in post-conflict landscapes.

“Through these explorations and discussions, we should ultimately be able to understand, engage and find our place in ongoing social-political issues as architects,” Zhang said about the fellowship. “I am honored to join the community and look forward to together exploring memory, life, and recovery in post-traumatic societies, a relevant and urgent topic today.”

Zhang is the latest individual to receive the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, which was created in 2015 to honor Syracuse architecture alumnus Harry der Boghosian. Since then, the fellowship has sought to provide emerging designers and academics with the “opportunity to collaborate on projects while developing a unique design research project that both advances their work and career and contributes to the intellectual and design life of the school.”

The 2022-23 iteration of the fellowship was awarded to Lily Chishan Wong, while past recipients have included Leen Katrib (2021–2022), Liang Wang (2020–21), and Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019–20).