Wong Wins Reynolds Leadership Award

Peter Wong
Monday, February 15, 2021
The Reynolds Leadership Award honors excellence in graduate program administration.

Associate Professor of Architecture Peter Wong, Graduate Program Director for the School of Architecture, has been selected to receive the 2020-2021 Thomas L. Reynolds Leadership Award for his contributions to student success above and beyond his teaching role. The Reynolds Leadership Award honors excellence in graduate program administration and is presented annually to a Graduate Program Director (GPD) or Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC).  Recipients are selected by a committee of previous winners, the Graduate Council chair and Graduate School staff. 

“Professor Wong has demonstrated exemplary leadership for many years,” said Associate Provost and Graduate School Dean Tom Reynolds.  “He is an energetic, creative, dedicated Graduate Program Director and a strong mentor to both students and faculty.”

Brook Muller, Dean of the College of Arts + Architecture, is also impressed by Wong's leadership and mentoring of students.  "So many in our community feel gratitude for Peter's long standing commitment to graduate students in the School of Architecture,” Muller said. “He is tenacious in elevating design thinking and quality among all he works with, exposing students as he does to compelling ideas and constructs with profound implications for architectural practice."

Having served as a GPD for 13 years, Professor Wong has been teaching at UNC Charlotte for more than 30 years, where he has offered architectural design, history, and theory classes since 1988. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1981 from the University of Washington in Seattle and earned a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985. He is a recipient of a 1996 Design Excellence Award given by the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) and was recognized with a Merit Award in 2004 by the Charlotte AIA Chapter for a workshop and guest house completed in 2003.

In his research, Wong uses eye-tracking technology to study the way we perceive and respond to space. He is particularly interested in the way people look at rooms and their openings and how a wall or a window prompts the viewer's eye to wander outside the actual range of space. He will present his paper, "Vague Space: Tracing Eyes, Edges, and the Indeterminate Limits of the Architectural Interior," at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) 109th annual meeting in March.

Thomas L. Reynolds Leadership Award winners receive $1000 and an engraved plaque, and their name is engraved on a perpetual trophy that is on display in the Graduate School offices. Read more on the Graduate School website.