PHD Program

Prometheus is a peer-reviewed PhD student journal that showcases research-in-progress presented during our annual symposium hosted by IIT College of Architecture’s PhD Program. This year’s symposium — “In Between: Architecture and Development of the Urban Landscape” — was held on November 16–17, 2023, and co-organized by Aamena Mubarak Bakarmom, Çiçek Karataş, Alejandro Saldaña Perales, and Sasha Zanko. Organizing an annual symposium has various objectives. In addition to presenting new, interdisciplinary research, we seek to remind undergraduate and graduate students of the CoA and beyond, and perhaps more importantly, design faculty, of the power of in-depth research to inform, and transform contemporary design. As a historian and preservationist of the twentieth-century built environment, it is not my role to predict the future. But, as part of my leadership role here at IIT, I have worked to emphasize the need to ground contemporary design in a much deeper understanding of the past in order to identify sources of truly radical innovation, both present and future.

The seventh issue of Prometheus features papers presented during the symposium by PhD students and keynotes by experts in the field that explored the relationship between architecture and a series of complex economic, political, social, and ecological challenges. In addition to presenting student research, each issue of Prometheus includes a yearly “PhD Program Overview” to showcase the achievements and activities of our community of students and affiliated faculty; this section presents academic programming highlights such as our weekly Architecture Research Forum lecture series and news about the ongoing research and accomplishments of our students and recent graduates. Each year, the PhD students who organize the symposium also serve as guest editors for the journal. Our hope is that the experience gained from these curatorial, organizational, and editorial activities associated with hosting a symposium and editing Prometheus will serve our students well when they enter academia and/or professional practice. We hope our Prometheus will continue to serve as a platform for emerging researchers who, like its symbol and masthead, defy the status quo by taking risks that lead to game-changing innovation in service to humankind, especially in times of crisis like the one we are experiencing now.