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Friday, March 29, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

‘It’s our responsibility’: UF researchers help Puerto Rico after hurricane

<p dir="ltr"><span>Cindy Spence (left), a reporter for UF’s Explore magazine, interviews UF professors Martha Koehn (middle) and Nancy Clark (right) Wednesday night in the Pugh Hall Ocora. The two professors in the College of Design, Construction and Planning talked about their work in rehabilitating Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.</span></p><p><span> </span></p>

Cindy Spence (left), a reporter for UF’s Explore magazine, interviews UF professors Martha Koehn (middle) and Nancy Clark (right) Wednesday night in the Pugh Hall Ocora. The two professors in the College of Design, Construction and Planning talked about their work in rehabilitating Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

 

UF is working from the ground up to help rebuild Puerto Rico.

On Wednesday night, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and University of Florida Research hosted “Puerto Rico: Resilience After the Storm,” a presentation about the ongoing UF architectural aid project in Puerto Rico to an audience of about 50 people.

The hour long event consisted of UF professors of architecture Martha Kohen and Nancy Clark presenting Puerto Rico Re_Start, a program founded in 2017 that collaborates with other universities from the U.S. and Europe as well as The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which promotes collaboration among nations through science, culture and education. After the presentation, the floor opened for a public Q&A.

Last year, the research team, which included three UF professors and seven UF students, went to the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras, Clark said. The full team consisted of 135 students and 35 professors from five universities, including UF, and a UNESCO chairman.

The team shared their plans for the island with local leaders, Kohen said.

“We were able to provide some new ideas for discussion,” Kohen said. “We want Puerto Rico to be a model of how we rebuild.”

For 10 days last March, the group helped rebuild Puerto Rico after Category 5 Hurricane Maria hit the island in Sept. 2017. They managed flooding, found a use for abandoned buildings, switched to solar energy and revitalized economic infrastructure Kohen said.

“All this devastation was on top of economic woes the island was going through,” Kohen said.

The 2018 trip cost $35,000 including travel and direct expenses with a majority of it funded by UF institutions such as the School of Architecture, the Office of Research and the Center for Latin American Studies, Kohen said.

This year, Florida Polytechnic University will be hosting the UF team in Puerto Rico from March 22 to March 30, while University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras undergoes repairs, Clark said.

In the months following Hurricane Maria, UF students and faculty have sent aid to the island, including by starting a book drive, dancing to fundraise and offering free online courses to non-degree seeking students.

UF is eager to work with University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras because of their similarities, Clark said. Florida, and especially UF, has a significant Puerto Rican student population who were impacted by the natural disaster.

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“We wanted to get there as soon as possible,” Clark said. “It’s really from them wanting to collaborate.”

The event allowed Kaitlin Knotton, a 27-year-old UF architecture sophomore, to not only support her professors but learn about the impact of architecture on a greater scale.

“It’s our responsibility to make beautiful buildings,” she said. “But it’s also our responsibility to bring a new quality of life to places.”

Cindy Spence (left), a reporter for UF’s Explore magazine, interviews UF professors Martha Koehn (middle) and Nancy Clark (right) Wednesday night in the Pugh Hall Ocora. The two professors in the College of Design, Construction and Planning talked about their work in rehabilitating Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

 

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