After recently signing a Memorandum of Understanding between UF Design, Construction and Planning and the University of Cuenca in Ecuador, a vital delegation visited UF to strengthen collaboration ties. Representing UFIC were: Dean Marta L. Wayne, Paloma Rodriguez, Susanne Hill and Michael Kung.
Dr. Karla Saldaña, from the UF School of Architecture, has organized faculty visits to Universidad de Cuenca and coordinated their campus visit as part of an ongoing collaboration.
The Cuenca delegation met with several faculty members to discuss possible collaborations in the future, including Study Abroad programs, research-related programs, and expanding Virtual Exchange collaborations.
The Cuenca delegation was composed by:
Alfredo Ordoñez Castro, Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Cuenca. He is faculty at the School of Architecture at the University of Azuay. Ordoñez Castro is currently the president of the Latin American Schools of Architecture organization. His research focuses on sustainability and new wood construction techniques, notably bamboo. He has extensive experience in the practice of over 20 years as a licensed architect in Ecuador.
Dr. María Eugenia Siguencia Avila, Architect working as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador. She obtained her Master’s in Conservation of Monuments and Sites (2014) and her Ph.D. (2018) at KU Leuven, Belgium. Since 2012, she has been part of the City Preservation Management -CPM- a research group at the Universidad de Cuenca. She has participated in Horizon 2020 International and other international innovation and heritage conservation projects. She is also actively involved in initiatives such as OurWorldHeritage, Go-HUL, the CIPA Emerging-Professionals group, and part of the National Committee of ICOMOS Ecuador.
Dr. Daniel Orellana, who has a Ph.D. in active mobility patterns, has led three projects on functional mobility, one specifically on school mobility, and has collaborated on other projects on physical activity, mobility, and the urban environment of children. He is the director of the Llacta LAB. This multidisciplinary research laboratory incorporates researchers from the following areas: Architecture and Urban Planning, Urban Geography, Sustainability Sciences, Anthropology, Education Sciences, and Participatory co-design and design thinking. The Llacta LAB has more than eight scientific publications on active and sustainable mobility published in high-impact international journals (7 of them in the first quartile of SJR) and has participated with more than 35 papers in conferences, symposiums, and academic congresses on the subject, 10 of them international.